


Little Things

by Sunderland



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Masturbation, Masturbation in Shower, Near Death Experiences, Pining, Romance, Sexual Fantasy, Slow Burn, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, and i love him, and worse than ever, basically This Bitch Is Thirsty: The Story, edited for your pleasure, hancock is the ultimate wingman, it is BACK
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-07-12 10:53:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15993701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunderland/pseuds/Sunderland
Summary: It was strange to think about, but once she got Shaun back, she knew that she wouldn’t have wanted to go back to life before the vault even if she could have. The life she’d had in Sanctuary Hills seemed like a strangely artificial dream, the colours too bright, everything fake. Life in the Commonwealth was dangerous and gritty, but she loved it. She felt more at home gunning down raiders and learning how to maintain a suit of power armor than she ever had dealing with neighbors or making casseroles.She was so damned selfish.





	1. Life Could be a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it's back. I'd taken this story down for a lot of reasons between not being fully satisfied with some of the chapters and feeling a lot of anxiety and stress about not creating content fast enough. Writing had stopped being fun and had just become a trial. But the thing is, I love this story a lot, and there were many times when I really genuinely loved working on it. So here it is-- Little Things is back and I'm going to be taking my time with it and editing it until I'm fully satisfied with it again. It's a labor of love, and I beg your indulgence and your patience. And to everyone who supported me in this work before, and to everyone who is reading this for the first time, I want to thank you. And I hope you love this story as much as I do.

The paladin sighed in his sleep, a hushed sound that Noel found strangely comforting amidst the steady drum of rain and the way the wind occasionally caused the battered shutters to bang lightly against the walls. She and Danse had been scouring the abandoned buildings in a sector outside Diamond City, on the lookout for supplies and technical documents, when the grey sky had opened up and started pouring down rain. Adding in the damp chill of the air and a thick fogbank that had rolled in an hour earlier, the day had turned to shit quickly. With night setting in and near-zero visibility, there was nothing left to do but find a building and hole up until the morning.

Dinner had been a brief affair, and quiet—Danse had had a headache that she’d suspected was more uncomfortable than he was willing to admit. She hadn’t pushed it and stayed quiet for his benefit, though she had given him a bigger share of their dinner (an only moderately appetizing mix of beans and roasted radstag). He hadn’t wanted to, but she had also coaxed him into drinking some extra water. Their supplies were running low, but she trusted that they’d be able to secure more water to purify. And really, staying hydrated was the best thing for a headache.

Noel carefully tucked her own blanket over the one already covering the slumbering man. It wasn’t quite large enough to cover him properly since he was still in his power armor, but she reassured herself that on a cold, miserable night like tonight every bit would help. Her hands lingered for a moment longer than strictly necessary, smoothing out the wrinkles in the fabric before withdrawing.

She’d turned to the Brotherhood of Steel in her desperation. She’d been alone and miserable and completely at a loss as far as how life worked in this strange new world she’d found herself in. But for the first time since waking up, she’d felt secure when she was with the Brotherhood. The comfort didn’t make her miss Shaun any less, or feel the sting of loss over Nate any less, but even so… At first it had been little things. Keeping her hands busy, keeping her mind focused, being given a task to execute—those were good things, things that kept her from wallowing in her grief. It was hard to sit still and feel sorry for oneself with the paladin pushing her to be her best. But then she’d gotten to know Haylen and Rhys and even Danse himself, as much as he allowed considering he seemed to be all business.

She’d given Rhys the basics of her situation—just enough to ease his suspicions. She’d talked to Haylen quite a bit more though, and attempted to offer some measure of comfort over the other woman’s feelings for the knight. The two had easily established a friendship, and Noel was grateful to have someone to talk to as easily as she could with the scribe.

The paladin, though… when Noel thought about Danse, she felt as though her stomach was twisting itself into knots. She was always on edge around him, anxious to live up to his standards and follow orders as efficiently as possible. He was a great leader, and she admired him. He was… someone she wanted to follow.

But in the weeks that she’d spent traveling with him—after meeting Elder Maxson and being officially assigned to Danse’s command—everything had become so much more damned complicated. It was little things at first. She found herself more acutely aware of the way the sun reflected off his dark eyes in the morning, or how the deep timbre of his voice shifted subtly when he was pleased with their successes.

She wasn’t a shy teenage girl anymore, wondering at what her feelings meant the way she’d wondered about the uncertain blossom of emotions surrounding Nate as they’d grown up together. When he’d joined the army and she’d gone off to law school, they’d written letters back and forth, mostly sweet nothings. Absence had made the heart grow fonder, she supposed. When Nate came home and they’d gotten married and started a life together, she’d been so happy…

But she had also been bored.

Their life was a perfect little storybook existence, and she knew it wasn’t right to want for more. Looking back on it now, with an outside perspective… well, she supposed she’d simply been too young to make a life-changing decision like deciding who she wanted to be with for the rest of her life. She and Nate had enjoyed a fine relationship in school together, and things had been fine when he was away on duty. Things were fine at home, too, after they’d gotten married—“fine” about summed up their relationship in its entirety. It was always acceptable, always pleasant, but never passionate. Nate was a kind man, and a warm one. But that was all. He was good to her, but she’d wanted more.

Maybe she was just selfish.

She’d never had the heart to tell Nate that she wasn’t happy with him, that she wanted to burn with need and passion. She wanted kisses that stole her breath away and left her panting and aching for more. She’d gotten affectionate pecks on the cheek. It wasn’t anything wrong with Nate. She knew, deep down, that it wasn’t his fault or her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. They were just two different people with two different sets of expectations and desires. Despite Nate’s years of service in the military, he was by nature a gentle man and nothing would change that.

Things had gotten a little better when Shaun was born. As much as her feelings for Nate by then were only lukewarm, she loved her baby more than anything in the world. He’d been the best thing to ever happen to her. Even when he woke up crying in the middle of the night because he needed to be changed, she didn’t mind. Nothing in life was monotonous with a baby. She was able to pour all her energy into caring for him. Still, she couldn’t help but feel like her life was falling apart and she was struggling to hold it all together for the sake of keeping up appearances.

The addition of Codsworth to the family had helped. In a way, she felt strangely like she identified with the robot. He was constantly trying to tidy up and keep everything looking perfect and orderly. And wasn’t she doing the same? When they had dinner parties, she’d played the part of the charming, smiling hostess until her cheeks hurt and the guests left. On the inside, each forced interaction left her feeling more and more desolate inside. She felt as though she was pouring all her emotional energy into being the person she was expected to be, and between that and caring for Shaun, she had nothing left for herself. The neighbors and Nate all thought she was delightful. She wondered what they would have thought if they could see her now.

Noel’s glance traced along the paladin’s face, drifting once again over the scar across his dark brow. She wondered, not for the first time, how he’d gotten it—and also not for the first time, how it would feel to brush her thumb along it. Frustrated and guilty, she tore her gaze away and shifted to look out the narrow triangle of window that wasn’t boarded over. With as dark as it was and the rain, she couldn’t see a damned thing out there, but it was better than staring at her commanding officer like a weirdo.

She wanted him. It was a simple enough fact, and one she’d simply forced herself to accept rather than trying to deny it. Denial would only cause more problems down the road. Suppressing the truth of her feelings was a terrible idea, she’d reasoned. Better to acknowledge them and also to understand that nothing could come of them.

It was just… When they stormed into combat together, guns blazing, she felt so alive, not like she was just existing. When she was holed up in a perch with her rifle, picking enemies off with surgical precision to protect him, she felt good, not just fine. When he shouted commands in combat, she felt her adrenaline pumping. And when they sat down to dinner together and he told her she’d done well, she felt a fierce, sweet, proud ache in her chest.

It was strange to think about, but once she got Shaun back, she knew that she wouldn’t have wanted to go back to life before the vault even if she could have. The life she’d had in Sanctuary Hills seemed like a strangely artificial dream, the colours too bright, everything fake. Life in the Commonwealth was dangerous and gritty, but she loved it. She felt more at home gunning down raiders and learning how to maintain a suit of power armor than she ever had dealing with neighbors or making casseroles.

She was so damned selfish.

Her little boy was out there without his parents and she had no idea how to find him… and here she was, enjoying shivering in the dark in a crumbling old house in a city full of ghouls and raiders and god only knew what else.

Suddenly, as it happened so often when she was left alone with her thoughts for too long, it became too much to bear. She didn’t want to be awake with her thoughts anymore. Maybe her thoughts would be gone in the morning… or at least, maybe she could convince herself that they were for a time. Pulling a battered pocketwatch from her gear, she squinted hard at the cracked face. She’d let the paladin sleep an extra hour in the hopes that he’d feel better sooner, but she knew he’d disapprove if she let him sleep too long.

Leaning over as she stuffed the watch back into her pocket, she placed her hand at the crook of his elbow, pressing lightly at one of the only spots on his body that wasn’t covered by a heavy plated suit. “Danse.” She murmured.

His eyes snapped open immediately and he sat up, alert. “Ah. Knight. –Did I oversleep?” he asked, turning his head to peer at her in the darkness.

“I wanted you to have an extra hour,” she whispered in response, pulling off her battered militia hat and eyeglasses and neatly tucking them into the bucket of the hat. She set the whole thing aside. “How’s your head?”

“Better, thank you. You shouldn’t have done that. You need sleep yourself, or you won’t be able to perform at optimal capacity.” His tone, while quiet, had that stern hint of disapproval that always bothered her when it was aimed at her (as it so often was). Danse sat up, dislodging the blankets she’d tucked over him.

“Don’t worry. I’m going to sleep right now.” Easing downward, she slid her supply bag over and mashed at it for a moment, trying to arrange the contents inside into a configuration that didn’t make it feel like a pillow made of guns and ammo boxes and odds and ends, which was exactly what it was. Settling on her side, she let her head fall to rest on the bag. For a moment, unable to help herself, she watched him as best she could without her glasses to help focus her vision.

He seemed to be watching her, as best as she could tell, and she thought his lips were still quirked into a slight frown. “You ought to cover up. Here—is this?… This is your blanket.” He grumbled as he extricated her blanket (a ratty patchwork monstrosity of flannel scraps in varying patterns and shades) from his own blanket, which was a plain grey wool, standard Brotherhood issue.

“It was cold. I thought the extra warmth might help you sleep better.” She mumbled, shutting her eyes and sticking out her arm to take her blanket back from him. The sudden sensation of moving air and fabric settling over her frame made her pop her eyes back open again. He’d covered her up. Sheepishly, she lowered her hand and tucked it under her head.

“—Thank you, Knight. For looking after me.” The paladin’s tone was gentler. He then draped his own wool blanket over her as well, sealing in her own warmth along with the residual warmth of his body. She felt the heavy brush of his suit’s thumb as it bumped clumsily against her hip.

Noel shivered, and not from the cold. “Anytime, Paladin,” Her voice was a whisper, and she shut her eyes before the growing ache in her chest could make her shove her foot in her mouth. “G’night, Danse.”

He was quiet for so long that she’d nearly already fallen asleep by the time he finally uttered a hushed “Good night, Noel.”


	2. Twistin' the Night Away

“I haven’t had a good beer in a long time.”

Danse’s voice drew her focus away from the terminal she was puzzling over, and she glanced at him. “Sorry, what?” she asked, planting her hand on the top of her hat and pushing it back a bit.

“My apologies, soldier. I didn’t mean to distract you.” He replied, glancing away from her to lean out through the doorway a scant inch to make sure there weren’t any raiders headed their way. Satisfied that they were clear, he turned his head to look at her once more.

“Don’t apologize. You didn’t distract me. What kinds of beer do you like?” she asked, gently tapping her thumb against the bottom of the terminal’s keyboard, just under the space bar.

“Apparently I have distracted you. You usually have terminals hacked much more quickly than that,” His deep voice held a hint of amusement, though he glanced away again as if innocent of the way she turned her head to scowl at him, her glasses slipping down her nose. The brewery was stiflingly warm, and she was perspiring freely under her lightweight leathers. She couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable Danse must have been in that heavy power armor, but despite the sheen of sweat on his forehead, he seemed remarkably unruffled. “As for beer… I like darker beers. Stouts. Anything strong.”

“What’s the point if it’s just bitter yellow water, right?” she asked, pushing the back of her hand along her forehead, her damp hair sticking uncomfortably to her face and neck. With a few more keystrokes, she cracked the terminal’s password and began scanning through her options on which systems she could access from the tiny office.

The paladin nodded. “Exactly. Anything good in there?” he asked with a nod toward the terminal.

“Yeah. Deactivating some sentry bots now. Turning on spotlights. Maybe it’ll help flush some of them out.”

“Outstanding. That’s a useful skill to—shh.” He stopped abruptly as the spotlights turned on, bright beams of light sweeping across the huge room. His brows furrowed as he peered first out the open door, then out the large window that dominated the office and overlooked the brewery floor.

She was on the defensive in an instant, picking up her shotgun from the desk where she’d set it, in easy reach of the terminal. Her glance flicked over to Danse, awaiting his direction.

“I thought I saw something.” He whispered, but he was looking up and across the warehouse catwalks, not down at the production floor—

Attempting to follow his gaze and help him search, she cautiously edged her head up and over the edge of the desk. The spotlight swept back across the room, and she saw light reflecting off of glass—a rifle scope—

“Get down!” Danse roared, and before she could even react she felt heavy steel slamming into her, crushing her, forcing her down onto the floor, her hat going flying. Her breath was knocked from her lungs and the back of her head thumped against the floor as she heard the single, echoing crack of a rifle being fired, and the bullet whizzed through the office window and into the wall just behind where she’d been. Out in the warehouse, she heard a curse and a raider shouting orders. More voices responded.

She should have been afraid. Really, it would have been the sensible way to feel. After all, she’d nearly been shot in the head—and she’d shot more than enough people in the head with her own rifle to know that you couldn’t just stimpack that kind of damage away.

No, she’d nearly been killed just then, but all she could think about besides the way her lungs burned as she gulped down air was the feel of the paladin’s steel-plated digits at her waist, curling around her and pressing down so hard it bordered on painful.

“Are you alright?” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

God help her, she was more than alright. She was _alive._ The feel of him holding her, pinning her down beneath his heavy frame was dangerously sweet. But she just nodded, managed a gasped word of thanks, and then he had released her, righting himself.

“They’re coming. Sounds like five—six? Six. Get ready. We’ll hold them here. Stay low.” He ordered and swept the terminal off the desk, flipping it over to form a makeshift barricade.

Noel hurried to obey, ducking down behind the desk with her shotgun at the ready. “I’ll take the first two, then switch to my rifle for the sniper.” With Danse waiting just inside the door, they listened to the sound of multiple pairs of feet running up the stairs and along the metal walkways and swarming toward the tiny office.

The first raider burst into the open door, pistol in hand. He was wearing a battered old biker helmet, but… _Unarmored,_ she thought to herself. _Good._

Before the man could aim on Danse, she swung out from behind her cover and pulled the trigger. The raider’s left kneecap shattered. He went down hard, screaming in agony. Blood sprayed over the paladin’s legs. The raider was still moaning, trying to stanch the bleeding with his fingers, when the second stepped on him and over him. A woman with a pool cue. This one wasn’t even wearing a helmet. Noel gave the raider the other barrel directly to the face.

Her body hadn’t even fully slumped to the floor when Danse whipped around the corner, raining death down on the other raiders with his laser rifle. She could hear the screams of the dying, but she had no time to admire his handiwork. Pulling her rifle from her bag, she rested the barrel on the windowsill for better stability and leaned in to peer through the scope, the rim clicking lightly against the lens of her glasses. Noel held her breath. The spotlight moved back across the room and she caught sight of the enemy’s scope once more—and behind it, a head.

She exhaled as she pulled the trigger.

Her own rifle had a silencer on it, so it didn’t have the devastating, dangerous crack that the raider’s rifle had when fired. No, it was just a tiny little noise, lost in the din of combat. The sniper went down. By the time she’d scooped up her shotgun and rushed for the door to help him, hurriedly reloading, Danse had already dispatched the rest of the raiders.

“That was fine shooting, soldier,” he uttered, turning to face her. “Well done.”

“Thank you. You aren’t hurt, are you?” she asked, trying to ignore the sudden, ridiculous swell of pride in her chest that she felt every time he praised her.

“Thanks to your cover fire, I’m fine. We make a good team.”

The proud thumping of her heart against her ribs was a sweet ache. “Thank you. For saving me, I mean.”

The paladin just nodded and looked away abruptly. His tone was clipped when he spoke. “Let’s finish looking around here. That was the last of them, I think.”

Was he… angry at her? All of a sudden, it felt as if the wind had gone out of her sails. What had she done wrong? Noel could only watch as he tromped off down the catwalk to check the raiders and make sure they were all dead. With a sigh, she bent down to pick up her hat and put it back on. Slinging her rifle over her shoulder and picking up her bag, Noel headed for the door, stepping over the raiders.

A hand grabbed at her ankle. “Please…” the voice was as thin and weak as a reed.

Noel glanced down at the raider whose leg she’d blown off. She was surprised the man was still alive—and even more surprised that he was conscious. His skin was ghastly pale, his eyes heavily dilated from the effects of one drug or another. He was dying, she knew. The man wet his lips with his tongue, expression contorted in a grimace. “Please… it hurts. Make it stop, please…”

She didn’t have to glance down the catwalk to know that Danse had stopped and was looking at her. She could feel the weight of the paladin’s stare like it was a physical thing. Kneeling, she drew her knife from its leather sheath at her hip. “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt anymore.” She murmured.

When she gently eased the blade in between his ribs, the only sound he made was to let out a wet, rattling sigh as he expired.

Noel cleaned her knife off on the edge of his shirt before easing it back into its sheath. Rising, she set off down the catwalk, heading toward the stairs. Danse had already gone on ahead. For that, she was grateful. It was one thing to kill enemies in the heat of battle, but she still struggled with putting down people in that kind of situation, and he knew it. She never could have saved that man. He’d lost too much blood. Killing him quickly, rather than letting him die slowly and in agony, was the right thing to do. It was a mercy, but all the same…

She heard the door to the brewery open and shut as Danse headed outside. Exhaling in a weary sigh, she paused to remove her glasses and rub what she told herself was just sweat away from her eyes. When she put her glasses back on, though, she caught sight of a few boxes tucked away under the production line. Still needing a moment before going out and facing Danse, and her curiosity getting the better of her, she drifted over to it.

When she opened the box, she felt a wavering smile touch her lips in spite of herself. Reaching down, she withdrew the six-pack of Gwinnett stout from the container and carefully tucked it into her duffel bag. Maybe they could find an ice machine in working order…

The paladin was waiting for her outside, the cool breeze stirring at his dark hair. “Ready to go?”

She let out a hum of relief as she scooped up her own hair away from the back of her neck, letting the crisp autumn air soothe away some of the sweaty discomfort of the brewery. “Ahhh. Yeah. Do you think we have time to get back to Sanctuary before nightfall?”

He tipped his head back to peer up at the sky, considering. His tone was still distant, formal. “Unlikely. We’d be better off heading back to the Cambridge police station and spending the night there.”

“Okay. We haven’t seen Haylen in over a week now. I’m sure she’ll have a report to make about the area.” She replied, shrugging her rifle over her shoulder and trying to pretend like she hadn’t noticed his shift in demeanor. The two set off down the cracked, partially-destroyed road, silence growing between them. Noel found herself glancing surreptitiously at Danse now and again. Her guilt and discomfort over killing that raider was compounding with how anxious she felt about Danse being angry with her. Either he didn’t notice her stewing unhappily, or he didn’t want to pry—probably the latter. Danse was no idiot. He was observant. He also didn’t like talking about personal things.

Fortunately, the trip to the police station was a brief one. It was a short distance and they weren’t attacked on the way. When they caught sight of the fortifications and the Brotherhood soldiers around the station, Noel almost breathed a sigh of relief. Danse was all business as he stopped to talk to the knight at the perimeter, waving her ahead as a dismissal.

Noel beelined it for the station proper, heading right inside and to the little office Haylen was keeping her records and artifacts in.

“Hey!” the scribe exclaimed in delight, though she immediately lofted her brows. “You look terrible. Are you alright?”

“Now that’s just unkind, Haylen,” she grumbled, pinching at the bridge of her nose. “I’m fine. How are you?”

Haylen smiled at her. “Great. Things have been going well here. We’ve managed to secure another half-block of the surrounding area.”

“That’s great news. I’m sure Danse will be happy to hear that, too.”

“Did you two get into an argument?” Haylen asked suddenly, regarding her with suspicion. How the woman was so perceptive sometimes was beyond her.

“No, nothing like that. We ran into some trouble and now he’s hardly talking to me.” She said with a grimace.

“Did either of you get hurt?”

“No! No, we’re both fine. I don’t know what got into him all of a sudden.”

Haylen sighed, giving a shake of her head. “How about this? I’ll talk to him and see what’s going on once he gets in, okay? And I’ll try to convince him to just tell you what’s bothering him.”

Noel considered this for a moment, frowning. She trusted Haylen, and the scribe had known Danse for a hell of a lot longer than she had. Surely she’d be able to help. Danse would listen to her. Nodding, she forced a smile onto her lips, rearranging her features into an expression that looked more convinced than she probably felt—a reminder of a life from two centuries ago, a life in which a housewife wore pretty dresses and brought soup over to sick neighbors and made sympathetic noises even when she was too tired to actually give a damn—

“Thanks, Haylen. I really appreciate it.” She uttered quickly, trying to shove the thoughts away.

“Anytime, Noel,” the scribe said with an oblivious smile. “Where are you going to be?”

“The roof, I think. Do we have a working ice maker in here?”

“Yeah. The boys brought one into the kitchen and got it working. Help yourself!”

Nodding gratefully, Noel shrugged at her rifle and duffel bag to redistribute the weight of her gear. “Thanks. I’ll talk to you later, Haylen.” With that, she headed for the station’s kitchen—she just wanted to be out of the way when Danse got in.


	3. Softly Baby

It took nearly two hours for Danse to finally show up on the roof. Noel had spent the time dragging a pair of chairs up onto the helipad and arranging them with a battered, rust-stained bucket between them. She’d filled the bucket with ice and then stuck the six bottles of beer in to let them chill. And then she had waited. Oh, to be sure, she’d kept her hands busy in the meantime with checking over her gear and cleaning and reloading her weapons, but the whole time her mind had been anxiously mulling over Danse and what she could have possibly done to make him so angry. As one hour had dragged into two and the minutes seemed to grow longer and longer, her tension had grown seemingly exponentially.

And so when he finally emerged onto the roof, Noel nearly slumped in her seat in relief, feeling rather like a deflated balloon. Even if he was angry with her, at least his presence on the roof signaled that he was ready to talk to her. That was much better than brooding and worrying over what might be. Better to just have it all out.

Her voice sounded lighter and more relaxed than she would have ever thought possible given the way her stomach felt as if it was twisting. “Paladin. C’mon over and lose the armor. You’d probably break the chair if you tried to sit down like that.”

He stopped, hesitating for a moment before finally striding closer. His expression was guarded as his dark gaze swept over the chairs and the ice-filled bucket. “What’s all this, Knight?”

Best to try to put him at ease. Give him a chance to relax. Maybe it’d be easier to talk about their problems once they’d each had a drink. “Just sit! I found a prize at the brewery and I thought of you.”

For a moment, she didn’t think he’d actually do it. But then, with the distinct hiss as the suit powered down and opened up, Danse clambered out the back. Noel found herself holding her breath as she tried not to stare at the paladin. She’d never really been fond of the colour orange, but on Danse the rather unfortunate shade of the Brotherhood uniform didn’t seem so bad for some reason. The flight suit clung to his frame, highlighting a chest and torso that was thick with muscle. He had broad shoulders and even under the fabric of the suit she could tell at a glance that his arms were undoubtedly just as powerful. The lines of the seams and the zippers all seemed to serve to maddeningly draw her glance downward, toward the hard, narrow plane of his hips… Noel felt herself gulp as she hurriedly tried to turn her glance away, a monotone chant of don’t stare _don’t stare don’t stare_ steadily growing louder and louder in her head.

She looked away. She really did. But she couldn’t help it. Despite her very best efforts to not stare at him, her glance followed the paladin like a fish on a hook. The shift of orange at the corner of her eye made her look again. As he turned away to check on the fusion core at the back of his power armor, Noel almost died right there in her seat. It was difficult to tell exactly how toned and sculpted the paladin was through the flight suit, but if she could judge just based off of estimation… Noel had to force herself to turn her head away in order to stare out across the city ruins, instead of at the eyeful of ass she’d just been ogling like a horny teenager.

Her cheeks burned in a combination of desire and embarrassment and deep anger at herself. What the hell was her problem? It was wrong of her to stare at him like that and she damn well knew it. It was disrespectful to him as her commanding officer. Hell, it was disrespectful to him as a person! She didn’t look over again until she heard him take a seat beside her. This time, she was careful to keep her gaze anchored firmly above his collar. No lower.

“So, what is it?” he asked, oblivious to the fact that she’d just been staring at him.

“Just a six-pack of stout.” She made herself force the words out despite the pressure that seemed to be squeezing at her chest.

The paladin’s thick, dark brows lifted in surprise, and he reached down with one hand to pluck a bottle from the ice bucket. With a kind of restrained eagerness that made him look younger than he was, he took the cap between his thumb and forefinger—Noel found herself distractedly wondering how those thick, calloused fingers would feel cupping at the back of her neck or laced with her own smaller fingers—and twisted the cap off in a smooth motion. He raised the bottle to his lips, took a drink, and exhaled in a sigh of pleasure that drew shivers up Noel’s spine.

“Good?” she asked hopefully, her glance searching Danse’s face for his earlier frown. For the moment, though, his expression was one of relaxation.

“It’s great,” he admitted in that deep voice, leaning back in his seat. Seeing him like this, out of his power armor in her presence for the first time, comfortable and almost languid in his chair—he looked worlds less imposing than the man who easily stood over seven feet tall in his armor, barking orders on the battlefield while burning down packs of ghouls with his rifle. “Thank you.”

Noel smiled to herself as she picked up a bottle for herself, twisting at the cap. It was stuck tight. Trying to act casual, like she wasn’t in any hurry to start drinking, she crossed her legs and eased back in her own chair. “Anytime, Danse.”

When she glanced over to look at him, he was watching her with brows lofted. Setting his bottle down on the arm of his lawn chair, he then extended a hand toward her, watching her with a saintly sort of patience tempered by the faintest hint of amusement. “Give it here.”

Noel felt her ears burn as she obediently passed the bottle over.

Danse took the bottle and easily twisted the cap off, then offered the bottle back. When she tried to take it, he easily swiped it back out of reach and took a swig.

“Hey! That’s mine! You’ve already got your own.” She protested, scowling at him.

“Where I come from, we had a rule. If you couldn’t get your own bottle open, the person who opened it for you was entitled to take a drink from it. Kind of a tax.”

She plucked the bottle away from his fingers. “That’s not how taxes work.” She grumbled, taking a sip of the dark, rich beer and trying to focus more on the taste than her awareness of the fact that his lips had just touched the bottle.

“Taxes don’t work at all anymore,” he pointed out blandly, picking his own bottle back up.

“Smartass.”

“Watch your tone, Knight.” He said, though his tone suggested he didn’t actually mean it.

“I’m so sorry, Paladin,” she said, mock contrite. “Will you please forgive me?”

“Mm. Only because you found beer.”

She laughed aloud then, feeling the tension she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in her shoulders start to ebb away. Even Danse almost—almost!—chuckled. She fell silent and the quiet stretched out between them, though it wasn’t the heavy, oppressive hush of the walk back to the police station. It was a simpler, more comfortable thing. It gave her hope that whatever had been bothering Danse, maybe it was something that could be fixed.

Eventually he finished his first beer and set the empty bottle down on the smooth surface of the helipad beside the bucket. As he fished a second beer out from the ice, he sighed. “I talked to Haylen. She seems to be under the impression that I am angry with you.”

“Aren’t you?” she asked. She was careful to keep her tone gentle and restrained—curious, not accusatory. She finished up her beer, trying to keep pace with him.

The paladin twisted the cap of the bottle and automatically took a drink before passing it over to her. He then dug in the ice to get a replacement bottle for himself. “May I speak with you frankly? Strictly off the record.”

“Of course. I’d—really appreciate your being blunt, Danse. I like honesty.” Noel took a sip from her fresh bottle, swallowing. Danse had easily downed his own bottle, but she hadn’t been much of a drinker even before being frozen. This was the first round of drinking she’d actually done since waking up, and 200 years of abstaining from alcohol was compounding with the fact that she wasn’t a large woman. She felt thoroughly relaxed despite the impending seriousness of their discussion.

He was silent, gathering his thoughts as he twisted the cap off his bottle and took a drink. Finally… “Today at the brewery. You almost got yourself killed.”

She scowled at that, pushing her glasses up. “I wasn’t being reckless, Danse. You know that. I was in cover and trying to help you.”

He stopped her protests by raising his index finger, calling for her to be quiet and listen. “You nearly got yourself shot in the head, soldier. You need to be more cautious. What if I hadn’t been there? You and I take different positions in combat just as often as not. It was a lucky thing that—“

“I know that,” she argued earnestly, turning her head to fix him with her stare. His expression, brows furrowed and lips turned downward in a look that might have been bitterness, drew her up short. More softly, she continued. “Danse… I know. I owe you my life. But even if we aren’t always right next to each other, aren’t we always looking out for one another when we’re in the field? When you go running into a pack of ghouls or when you kick down the door of a raider hideout, I may not be standing next to you shoving you out of the way, but I’m watching out for you. Always. I can protect you a hell of a lot better with cover fire than I ever could by trying to stand in front of you and shield you.”

His mouth twisted and he rubbed at the dark shadow of stubble along his jaw before taking a long drink. “That’s not the point I’m trying to get at here, soldier. You—“

“If we’re talking off the record, I’d appreciate it if you called me by name, Danse.” The words bubbled up out of her before she could stop them.

He hesitated a moment, surprise etching over his features. He continued, more quietly. “…Noel, then. You have a suit of power armor on the Prydwen. You ought to make better use of it.”

“I wear it sometimes! I wore it when we assaulted the fort to take it back from those super mutants, didn’t I?” she argued indignantly.

“Yes, but that’s my point. It kept you safe. Why don’t you wear it more often?”

In answer, she put her bottle between her thighs and lifted both hands, wiggling her fingers. “That’s why,” she huffed out. “How can I pick a lock or hack a terminal or rewire a turret with– with giant metal _sausage-fingers?_ I need fine motor control for a lot of the skills I bring to the field. When I’m going into what I fully expect will be a highly dangerous hellhole—like a super mutant hive—I like to have the armor. I recognize its value. But it’s about having the right tool for the job. You wouldn’t be able to open that beer if you were in your suit, right? You’d probably just end up crushing the bottle first.”

“It’s not the same.” He said, exasperated.

“Why not?”

“It just isn’t. And another thing, why don’t you ever wear a helmet?”

Noel stared at him flatly and took a swig from her bottle. “You don’t ever wear a helmet.”

“I’m not talking about me.”

“ _I_ am. You’re fussing over me like I’m an idiot, or like I don’t understand the risks. I do, Danse. I promise I do. But—“

Now he cut her off, pointing at her. “I saw you. When those raiders charged into the room. I saw you look at the one with the pool cue. You _looked_ at her and I saw you reach the conclusion in an instant that she wasn’t wearing a helmet, and you shot her in the head. You’re smart, Noel. You’ve got good instincts in battle. But if you can look at an enemy and say to yourself “Well, she isn’t wearing anything to protect her head,” what’s to keep anyone from looking at you and thinking the same thing?”

She was silent for a moment, pulled up short. She bought herself a moment by taking a drink. He did the same, but he was still watching her with those dark eyes. “I just… Well, I can’t wear the helmet over my glasses. There’s not enough room underneath it for them. And then I can’t see.”

He mulled that over for a long time, sipping at his beer and watching her.

Finally, she prompted gently, “Why don’t you ever wear your helmet?”

As if not wanting to admit it, he said quietly, “It impairs my vision. Not in the same way as you. Just… I can’t ever turn my head far enough in it.”

“So… can you forgive me for not wearing one, myself?” she asked. She felt the sudden, absurd desire to reach across the space between them and touch his arm, right above the crook of his elbow. Instead, she busied her fingers with picking at the faded label on the beer bottle.

“I’d be something of a hypocrite if I couldn’t.” he admitted ruefully.

She laughed at that in spite of herself, smiling over at him. “So are we okay?”

“We’re okay,” His rich, strong voice soothed her. “I just don’t want to see anything happen to you. I… consider you my friend, Noel. You’re a fine knight, and you embody the spirit of the Brotherhood’s beliefs and values. It would be a shame if you were…”

Noel didn’t press him on it. The meaning was there even if he had trailed off. He wasn’t angry at her—he was worried about her. The thought sent heat coursing through her veins, and fire seemed to lance through her stomach, deep within her body. Just as quickly, she tried to quash the blaze. He was worried about her as her commanding officer and as her friend, she reminded herself sternly. Not as a lover. But the thought was still there, and it was warm and sweet and so tempting…

Damn her. And damn the beer. That was probably why she was thinking about all the things she shouldn’t have been thinking about. When she stopped to look down at the bottle in her hands, she realized it was empty. When had she finished it off?

Danse seemed to have noticed the same, for he was pulling the last two bottles out of the ice. “Come on then. Help me finish them,” he commented idly, a ghost of a little half-smile tugging at his lips. The paladin easily twisted one, then the other cap off the bottles. “It’s funny.”

“What’s funny?” she asked curiously, watching as he raised what would be her bottle to his lips, taking his tax. Subconsciously, she wet her own lips with the tip of her tongue.

“How one of the most lethal women I’ve ever met is also barely five feet tall and a skinny little thing who can’t even open her own bottles.”

She smacked him on the arm, her fingertips lightly striking at his bicep. His arm was warm, even through the fabric of his flight suit, and the muscle was firm and taut. Noel then grabbed her bottle away from him before she could formulate a coherent thought about entertaining the idea of her hand lingering there, dipping lower to trace along the vulnerable, soft dip of his elbow and down along his forearm—

The paladin just lofted a scarred brow at her. If she hadn’t known any better she would have thought he was smirking. “See? I barely even felt that.”

“Well I wasn’t actually trying to hit you. And I’m five-two-and-a-half!” She protested, scowling at him behind her bottle as she raised it to her lips.

“Barely five feet,” he confirmed dismissively, “And I doubt I’d notice even if you did.” The paladin leaned comfortably back in his chair. The alcohol seemed to have loosened the paladin up just enough that he was able to relax. She liked seeing him like this, seeing the man under the power armor—mentally, not just physically. Physically wasn’t bad either, though.

She sniffed delicately. “Well, I don’t want to hit you, so I suppose we’ll never find out.” She didn’t want to hit him. She wanted to jump right up off her chair and grab him by his shoulders and pin him down and kiss him and taste the beer on his tongue. The thought made her angry all over again.

_Damn_ her.

And damn the beer, she thought even as she took another swing.

And damn him for being so, so…

He was watching her. “You’re drunk.” He observed.

Maddening.

“I am not!” she protested.

“You are.”

She scowled at him rebelliously. She certainly didn’t feel drunk. Tipsy, yes. Not drunk. “What’re you going to do about it even if I am, Paladin? Court martial me?”

“We’re off duty. You can drink as long as it doesn’t impair your performance in the morning.”

On the one hand, she didn’t want him to think she couldn’t hold her alcohol. On the other hand, she figured he’d probably be more disappointed if she drank too much tonight and was hung over tomorrow. Noel offered her mostly-empty bottle to him. “In that case, can you finish this? It seems like a shame to waste it, but I probably shouldn’t have anymore.” She admitted. She wasn’t drunk, but she could feel herself getting there. Drinking quickly with no food in one’s stomach would do that.

To her relief, Danse didn’t laugh at her. In fact, there was a hint of something that almost looked like approval in his eyes. He took the bottle and finished it easily, then finished off his own. “Thank you again, Kni—Noel. This was… enjoyable.”

“Should I keep my eyes open for more beer in the future?” she asked, turning her head to gaze over at him.

“Scotch is fine too. Or bourbon. Any kind of whiskey.” His expression was more reserved and guarded, signaling that their personal, off-the-record time was drawing to a close. He was shrugging on his professional demeanor, his leader-face, like one would put on a coat. She could still hear the smile in his voice, however.

“I thought you looked like a whiskey man.” She commented as she stood. And then it hit her all at once. He was right—she _was_ drunk. Gripping the arm of her lawnchair, she tried very hard to meet his gaze steadily.

The paladin considered her for a moment. “Since you set up, I’ll get this cleaned up. Why don’t you go have a shower? Haylen told me that they got the water heater working.” It was a casual suggestion, framed as a polite consideration, but it was obvious that he had offered for her benefit.

“Are you sure?” she asked anyway, for the sake of being polite.

“Positive. Go relax. We’ll leave bright and early tomorrow. I’ll brief you on our way out.”

Noel felt relieved. She didn’t really trust herself to bend down and pick up all those bottles without falling over and looking like a fool. “Thanks, Danse.” With his nod of dismissal, she turned and half-walked, half-wobbled her way to the stairs.


	4. Tonight You Belong to Me

She found her way to the station’s bathroom easily enough, remembering the path to get there from her last stay. The main shower room was on the first floor, and that was the room the male members of the Brotherhood used. Fortunately for Haylen, Noel, and the other two female soldiers, there was a private bathroom with its own shower that she supposed the station chief must have used. It was on the second floor, and tucked away behind a disused office. Truthfully, she was grateful. She wanted— _needed_ —privacy at the moment.

Noel glanced at herself in the cracked, tarnished mirror as she pulled off her leathers and her underclothes, bare toes curling lightly against the chilly floor once she got her boots off. She really was flushed, she thought to herself as she leaned heavily against the sink. And there, under her left breast, a bruise about the size of a golf ball discoloured the skin near her waist. It must have been where Danse had grabbed her… Turning, she craned her neck to look back over her shoulder at the other four bruises that dotted the flesh of her back like purple stars. He’d gripped her _hard,_ she remembered vaguely as she looked away to turn the shower on.

The water spurted on, the pipe rattling inside the wall. It was cold at first, but she felt it slowly begin to warm up as she stuck her hand under the flow. Withdrawing her hand and waiting for the water to heat, Noel found herself gently tracing the bruise at her front where he’d gripped her so tightly it had been like to crush her. There had been a little discomfort then from his tight grasp, but it had only bordered on pain. In reality, the feel of his weight atop her, his heat radiating down onto her, the scent of metal and leather and sweat… it had been so sweet that she hadn’t cared.

She eased her hand around her waist almost subconsciously, squeezing in an attempt to mimic the grasp she remembered so sharply. Putting pressure on the bruises made her hiss, but she squeezed anyway, only letting go when she stepped into the shower. The hot water took her breath away, and she let it pour down onto her head, soaking her hair and running in rivulets over her skin. Even so, she felt like she was burning from the inside out.

Noel’s hands shook as she began soaping her hair, her eyes shut tight. Her body was alive with a need, an ache that she hadn’t felt in years—not since she used to creep out of the bed she shared with Nate in order to hide out in the bathroom and satisfy herself in the middle of the night when her wants grew to be too much to bear. And wasn’t she doing the same thing now? Hadn’t she set herself up for it by slinking off to the shower to hide?

Noel pressed her thighs tight together to try and quell the urge to touch herself, scraping her nails along her scalp as if she meant to tear her hair out by the roots. Even the stinging pain on the top of her head as she scrubbed at her hair and scalp didn’t help. She couldn’t. If she did, she knew she’d be thinking about Danse. And he deserved her respect. She wouldn’t.

She was still thinking about how much she couldn’t and wouldn’t when she realized her hand had dipped down between her thighs, her fingers finding a wet heat that wasn’t from the shower.

 _Damn_ her.

Her knees nearly buckled as she ran her middle finger over her clit, teasing in small circles. The angry, responsible part of her brain raged at her that if she was going to act like a damned animal, she’d better hurry the hell up and get it over with quickly—and not to let her thoughts wander. But that voice was a tiny one for all its fury, and easily lost amidst the water and the steam and fragmented, half-remembered sounds of Danse’s voice, his sigh…

Her free hand brushed along her breast, cupping and squeezing lightly, fingers delicately tracing along her already-pert nipple. She shouldn’t have wanted him the way she did. It was selfish and it subverted his authority over her. But it was too easy to give in to her body’s needs, to shut her eyes and lean her head back against the shower wall and imagine that it was the paladin’s fingers pressing at her nipple, rolling the sensitive nub under the pad of a finger before pinching. A shudder worked its way up her spine and Noel’s back arched, a ragged gasp breaking free from her lips.

_In her mind’s eye, he was every bit the commanding officer even in the tryst she was fantasizing about, his powerful frame dwarfing her own as he pinned her to the wall, his lips seeking her neck in order to kiss and bite at the vulnerable flesh. Her own fingers sought him out, running along his thick, broad chest—she liked to imagine that he’d have some dark hair on his chest, marred here and there by more scars, and that it drifted downward in a trail past his navel. When she reached for his shaft, already throbbing and hard and pressing hotly against her, he caught her hands and wrenched them upward, pinning them to the wall above her head easily with one hand._

_“What do you want, Knight?” he whispered, his thumb caressing at her wet lips, teasingly spreading her but going no further._

_Noel whimpered, needily bucking her hips forward. “Please—Danse, please, I need you…”_

_“Mm-mm. You’ll address me as my rank, Knight, or I’ll have to punish you.” His breath was hot against her ear, and he nipped lightly at the lobe. She felt him use his knee to guide her legs wider apart, so he could see her, all of her, how wet she was for him._

_She had to gasp the words out through gritted teeth. “Paladin, please… fuck me.”_

_“That’s better,” he whispered, and filled her in a single, smooth stroke._

Biting down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out, Noel filled herself with her middle and ring fingers, her hips rolling against her hand. She knew, as tightly as she was wound up, that she wouldn’t last long. Turning, she braced her other hand against the wall, letting the hot water of the shower pour down onto her back as she lost herself in her fantasy.

_Her leg hooked around his waist, pulling him none too gently toward herself as his hips rocked forward, punctuating her moaning and his groans of pleasure with the obscene slap of flesh on flesh. When he finally released his hold on her wrists, she wrapped her arms about him and clung to him desperately. The paladin clutched at her hips, his thumbs tracing along the pale stretch marks that still marked her skin as if she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. His eyes, dark brown and so deep she could have fallen into them, happily drowned in them, held her own gaze fiercely. Lips barely parted as he gasped at the feel of her, he bowed his head to kiss her hungrily, so fiercely that she felt like she was burning alive—no, like she was fire made flesh._

_Her lips sought his again and again, unable to get enough of his searing kisses or the way he suckled at her bottom lip, flicking his tongue against it. His hips rolled against her, crashing into her, pressing her body back against the wall of the shower til there was nowhere for her to move, til he was above her and before her and around her and in her—_

_“Don’t stop, please–! I’m so close,” she gasped, and his hands squeezed at her narrow waist, pulling her to himself until her breasts were flush with his chest, her nipples teased by the coarse texture of the sparse, dark hairs along his chest._

_“Cum for me,” he growled in her ear, lips wrapping around the lobe and nipping. In the same moment, his hand drifted downward to tease at her center, his calloused fingers swirling around the sensitive bud of flesh._

_She climaxed hard around him, burying her face against his neck as her hips shuddered erratically against his, and his own heat exploded within her, filling her, his lips brushing against her ear as he whispered to her—_

Noel’s eyes flicked abruptly open. The water had gone cold, she realized. Quickly, with an almost clinical sense of detachment from her own body, she finished cleaning herself and then turned the water off. When she started toweling off, she rubbed at her skin until it stung, arms and legs and chest and face. She peered at the reflection in the tarnished mirror, clutching the thin, frayed towel to her chest, and in a way she was afraid of the woman she saw staring back at her, the one with those angry, weary, accusing eyes.

“It was only once,” she whispered as if trying to plea a case to the reflection as its lips moved. “It won’t happen again.”

She stared back at herself, silent and nonplussed.

It was wrong, no matter which way she looked at it or how she tried to frame it. She shouldn’t have—have used the thought of him like that. He deserved better than that. Disgusted with herself, she turned away from her reflection and went digging through her bag for a clean change of clothes.

If only she could turn away from her guilt so easily, or the knowledge that tonight it wouldn’t just be her guilt over enjoying her new life in the Commonwealth keeping her awake.


	5. It Only Hurts for a Little While

Noel adjusted her had for what felt like the twentieth time that morning, rocking it back and forth atop her head and smashing it down into place. No matter what she did, she just couldn’t relax or feel comfortable. She felt like a stranger inside her own skin. Sighing, she pushed her glasses up in order to pinch at the bridge of her nose. She just needed to accept the fact that the day was going to be a bad one.

She’d barely managed to sleep at all, and a headache that she couldn’t admit to having made her head feel like it was about to split open. The worst of it, though, was when she’d stopped to say goodbye to Haylen. The scribe had looked at her, with a kind of sympathy that made Noel panic. When the other woman gave her hand a squeeze and murmured “Just forget about it, Noel. It’ll be easier if you can,” she felt the blood turn to slush in her veins.

She knew.

Somehow, she knew.

The thought had made her sick with dread. If Haylen knew, what about the other Brotherhood members? God help her, what about Danse?

But it wasn’t all bad. The other Brotherhood soldiers clearly didn’t have a clue. And, more importantly, Danse didn’t seem any different either. She supposed Haylen just must have heard her last night while she was passing by the bathroom. Noel just counted herself lucky that the paladin hadn’t heard anything while he passed by on his way downstairs.

But Haylen knew. And while it didn’t seem like a particularly dangerous thing, considering Haylen of all people knew what it was like to want what one couldn’t have, still… Noel groaned under her breath and adjusted the weight of her bag across her body.

“Not hung over, are you soldier?” Danse called to her. The morning sunlight was pleasantly warm as it beat down on her, burning away the chill in the air. It was awfully damned bright out, though.

“No sir,” she made herself reply, trying to sound as relaxed and confident as she could. She was trying desperately to hold herself together. Maybe if she just acted like nothing was different she could make it so. “Just can’t get my hat to sit right on my head today. I feel like I must have a goose egg on the back of my head where I knocked it on the floor yesterday.” That much, at least, was true. When she probed gently at the back of her head with her fingertips she could definitely feel a lump that was quite tender to the touch.

“Why not take it off for awhile then?” he asked, glancing over at her for a moment before looking back down the road.

“And where would I put it? It’d get smushed in my bag. Unless you wanna wear it for me.” She countered.

“It wouldn’t fit.”

“You wanna bet on it?”

The paladin reached over and plucked the hat from her head, sending errant strands of her red hair flying in all directions. When he put it on himself, she saw that while it didn’t sit as low on the forehead, near the brows as it tended to fall on her. Still, it seemed to fit well enough, and… Noel drew in a hissing breath.

“Well?” he asked.

“You look like you belong in an old western film.” She said with a grin. Really, it did suit him—the well-worn leather contrasting with the strong angles of his jawline and his nose. His dark eyes and stubble completed the look. If he hadn’t been wearing his power armor, she would have thought he was some kind of old-timey sheriff come to life.

“What, like a cowboy?” he asked drily.

“Er—well, yeah. Hell, it looks good on you. Probably better than it does on me. Frankly, I’m jealous.” It _did_ look good on him. To be fair, he probably would have looked good wearing just about anything. _Or nothing._ The thought came to her so quickly she couldn’t divert it in time, and she angrily tried to shove the idea out of her head.

“Maybe I ought to keep it. My head’s felt awfully bare lately, ever since someone stole my hood and threw it off a building.” He stated blandly, peering at her.

“I wanted to see if you actually had hair. I was worried you were bald.” She said defensively.

“What business of yours is it if I’m bald or not?”

She huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “I was just curious. And I wasn’t _trying_ to throw it off the building. I had every intention of giving it back until that ghoul crawled up out of the air duct and tried to… to nibble my giblets.”

“Nibble your giblets.” His tone was flat.

“I panicked!”

The paladin just stared down his nose at her with that _way_ he had, that stern, disapproving look written all over her face. “How old are you, anyway?”

She knew where this was going and she didn’t like it. “Including the years of being frozen, or…?”

Danse sighed, visibly exasperated. “You know what I mean. Sometimes you say things or do things that are just so—“

“Childish?” she supplied the word before he could say it. Somehow, it hurt less that way.

“Stealing my hood. Or running into combat without proper armor on. Or—what did you say yesterday? You called the power armor gloves something and it was ridiculous and I don’t remember what it was.”

“Giant metal sausage-fingers.” She mumbled.

“That,” he snorted. His expression softened by the barest degree as he watched her. “Sometimes you do things like that and I think you must be so young. And then sometimes when I look at you, you look so tired. I just don’t understand you.”

Noel could only shrug under the weight of his stare. Her voice felt small as she spoke, trying to collect her jumbled thoughts and organize them despite her pounding headache. “I guess that makes sense. Sometimes I feel like a big kid. I—want to enjoy life. And I want to laugh and make jokes. Living in constant danger—it’d be easy to be serious all the time, yeah? But if I could die anytime, I’d rather try to spend the time I have enjoying myself even if it is in stupid little ways. But then… it’s difficult sometimes. I want my son back, Danse. I miss him so much. And I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever manage to find him, and…” She ground the words out, willing her voice not to break.

Danse was watching her with a look she couldn’t interpret. “Speak freely, sol—Speak freely, Noel. We’ll keep this off the record.”

She felt herself wanting to wither away under the paladin’s stare. When he looked at her like that, as still as if he was carved from stone, she found it difficult to form the right words. “I feel like a failure sometimes, Danse. Like I’m a bad mother. My baby is out there somewhere and I have no idea how to find him, and I—when I think about that, I feel like I’m a terrible person for enjoying so many other things in my life.”

“What do you mean?” he asked uncertainly.

She felt her lips twist in what she hoped was a smile, but knew probably looked more like a grimace. “This. Running around the Commonwealth, gunning down bad guys, trying to help people who need it. The Brotherhood. I love it. I feel more at home here than I ever did in… well, “my” time, I guess. Shaun was the only bright spot in my life before. And now everything else is bright but that. It’s a… a strange position I find myself in.”

The paladin’s deep brown eyes stared down at her, all but unblinking. “Your son was the only part of your life before than made you happy? What about the ease of living, always having enough food on your table? All the technology you had at your fingertips? What about your husband?”

Noel peered up at him bleakly. She felt like she was standing at the edge of a chasm so deep she couldn’t see the bottom, and that the ground under her feet was starting to crumble away. “It was… nice. It was all nice. But it’s like… I don’t know. It’s like it was all so nice that none of it actually meant anything. Every day was exactly like the one before it. Now I never know what will happen to me on a given day. Maybe something good will happen. Maybe something bad will happen. Maybe it’ll be a mixed bag. But no matter what, I know that I won’t ever have to fall back to such a weak word as “nice” to describe it. “Nice” is different than “good.” I- I’m sorry. I’m rambling and I know that probably didn’t make any sense.”

“No, no…” he said, watching her with an expression that seemed almost sad somehow—but he smoothed the look away. He continued, haltingly, as if struggling to find the right balance of empathy and professionalism. “Thank you for telling me. I feel like I understand you a little better now. We… rarely talk about ourselves so personally, I know. And when I talked to you about my life, growing up and the junk stand… I know it made me feel better, to tell you about it. It helped to know that you knew. I… I should have thought to consider that from your perspective as well.”

Instinctively, she reached out as if to touch him on the arm, but she withdrew her hand before her fingers could meet the steel of his power armor. She wanted to touch him. More than that. She wanted to grab him by the handles sticking off the chestpiece of his armor and pull him down to her and bury her face against his neck. She wanted him to hold her. Mostly, she wanted to cry. “It’s—it’s okay, Danse. I’m not really used to talking about my feelings, either. I never had anyone I felt comfortable talking about them with before.”

“Not even your husband? I thought spouses were supposed to share thing kind of information with one another.” 

She summoned up a weak smile from somewhere. “I think I’ll need to get a few drinks in me before I’m ready to talk about Nate.” The paladin nodded at that, surprisingly satisfied with that non-answer. “Come on. We need to get to Goodneighbor. The radio broadcast we got said it was urgent.” There was distaste in Danse’s voice at the thought. She knew he disliked ghouls regardless of whether or not they were feral, and that he also didn’t approve of Hancock. Still, he endured dealing with the city of Goodneighbor. Noel figured it was probably because there were regular humans there too. Or maybe he only put up with it for her benefit, because as happy as she was to gun down feral ghouls and hostiles, she was a bleeding heart when it came to innocent people.

The two fell back into step, Noel having to take quicker strides in order to keep up with Danse’s broad paces.

“So,” he spoke as he scanned the horizon, watchful as ever, “you didn’t like playing housewife. I can see that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, exactly?” she asked curiously, glancing over to him.

“You just look so at home with a rifle tucked up to your shoulder. It’s hard to imagine you in a frilly dress, baking cakes or whatever it is housewives did all day. The things they advertised in old magazines.”

“I hated it,” she admitted with a faint smile. “You have no idea how much more comfortable a good pair of pants is than a skirt. Always worrying about which way the wind is blowing from, tipping around on high heels and trying not to fall over—and then your garter gets to itching and you can’t scratch your thigh because that wouldn’t be even remotely ladylike, so you’re really casually trying to bump your leg against anything in an effort to stop the itching and then the clasp comes loose and your stocking starts to fall down…” she fell silent when she realized the paladin was looking at her again, his brows lofted in something like incredulity.

“I had no idea that being a woman back in the day was such a… process.” He said at last. The corners of his mouth twitched just the tiniest bit.

“Of course! I won’t even start on the amount of effort it took to cinch into one of the corsets you wore under your really nice dresses for parties.”

“Thank you for sparing me the gruesome details.” Despite his dry tone of voice, his glance was surprisingly gentle as he looked at her.

“Well, I wasn’t sure you were tough enough to handle the full truth…” she trailed off, peering into the distance and squinting. “Hey—is that Hancock?”

The paladin followed her glance. Judging by the disgusted noise he made in the back of his throat, it was indeed Hancock. As they drew nearer, she saw that the ghoul was seated on a wrecked, badly rusted car.

“I’ll go talk to him.” She said, giving Danse a quick smile– and the excuse to not have to deal with the ghoul– before jogging up the ruined highway.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, Hancock turned, his hand twitching behind his back… though at the sight of Noel, he grinned and languidly eased himself off the car. “Well, if it isn’t my favourite knight.”

“I’m the only knight you like, aren’t I? What, have you been cheating on me with some other Brotherhood softie?” she asked with a snicker.

“You know I’m saving myself for you,” he joked, then stared at her for a moment like he couldn’t quite decide what was off about her. After a moment, he figured it out. “Where’s your hat?” He glanced past her. It seemed to take a moment to focus his eyes properly. _High out of his gourd,_ she thought to herself with a kind of motherly exasperation. All at once, his expression screwed up. “Oh, come on, Noel!” he hollered, loud enough that she was surprised half the city didn’t hear.

“What?” she asked, peering at him in confusion.

“That’s just sick,“ he rasped, shaking his head. "I mean, I would have expected it from some other woman just because he’s pretty, but _you_ —I thought you were a woman of character!”

“Hancock, what are you talking about?” Noel asked, planting a hand on her hip and trying to will the ghoul into making sense.

“You two! Knocking boots. Doing the no-pants dance. Fucking!” As if those descriptors weren’t enough, he formed a circle with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and jammed his right index finger into it in a crude pantomime.

She grabbed his hands and tried to shove them down. She could hear the paladin’s heavy steps approaching. “We are not!” she hissed fiercely, trying to capture and hold the mayor’s gaze with her own. “Listen to me, Hancock. We’re not, okay?”

“He’s got your hat on,” the man supplied, as if that somehow explained everything. “Figured that was why.”

“That’s a long story, but I’ll get around to it later. But we’re. Not. Fucking.” She muttered the words so quietly she was worried he wouldn’t catch them. Luckily, she had the words out of the way just in time for the pair to turn at Danse’s approach.

“What were you yelling about?” the paladin demanded quietly, glowering at Hancock. “You were so loud I’m surprised we don’t have super mutants attacking us right now.”

“Eh, this area’s been pretty quiet since you two came through the other week.” Hancock replied with an easy grin.

Danse didn’t even attempt to return the smile. He ground his teeth together instead. “So what do you want?”

The ghoul eased backward to sit on the hood of the ruined car once more. “Well, it seems my happy town of Goodneighbor has a new thorn in its side. Ever since you two cleared out the jolly green giants in the area, it seems that a new gang of raiders has decided that it’s prime territory. Shifting balance of power and all. Anyway, yesterday they attacked a group of people who were trying to get to Goodneighbor. Killed half of ‘em. Took a couple of kids as captives. I figure they’re trying to ransom the kids off, but the people they took ‘em from don’t have the caps to pay.”

“So you called us,” Noel finished, scowling. Sudden rage burned white-hot inside her. “Stealing kids… I’ll do it. I’ll get them back.”

“I’m going with you.” Danse said quickly.

Hancock nodded. “Thanks. The raiders are holed up in an old parking garage to the east. It’ll mean a lot to the parents to get their kids back. I’ll go tell ‘em,” With that, cat-quick and graceful, he slid off the car and headed down the road, back toward Goodneighbor’s walls. Turning, he called back to her, “So you’re still single, right?” Hooting with laughter he turned away, breaking into a loping jog as if to escape the barrage of curses she hurled after him.

The paladin glared belligerently after the ghoul. “What was that all about?”

Noel just hurriedly shook her head. “C’mon. Let’s go get those kids.”


	6. Sing, Sing, Sing

The parking garage was a sprawling structure that seemed to take up nearly half of the city block, a rambling mess of crumbling concrete and rusted girders and ancient cars. It was a decidedly squat structure though, not nearly as tall as Noel had expected it to be, and as she peered through the scope of her rifle, she decided she didn’t like the look of it one bit. For one thing, there simply weren’t enough raiders around—a few sentries on the upper level and a turret aimed down toward the entrance to the garage… but not a real visible force.

“The structure must continue underground.” she reported, offering her rifle up to Danse so the paladin could also have a look.

He took the rifle and peered through the scope, a muscle in his jaw tensing as he watched the patrols. “You’re right. It’s dark in there, too. We have no idea what we’ll be walking into.”

Noel nodded and eased down to lay on her belly. She shimmied forward, closer to the edge of the roof of the apartment building that sat catty-corner to the garage. Propping herself up on her elbows, she reached upward toward him and he passed the rifle back to her. “You’re right, but I’m going in anyway. I’m going to kill every last one of the kidnapping bastards.” The rifle was a comfort in her hands, the stock tucked up to her shoulder, and she instinctively curled into it as she steadied the weapon before looking through the scope once again.

“I wasn’t trying to talk you out of it,” he commented quietly. “Take the sentries out and we’ll begin the assault immediately, Knight.”

Noel hissed an annoyed curse under her breath, taking her hand away from the trigger in order to push her fingers through her hair. It was shaping up to be a blustery day, and the long strands of her hair kept getting in her way, distracting her. She was on edge already—her headache, her weariness, her frustration and disgust at herself, her fear and rage over the kidnapped children… Angrily, she tried to tuck the errant locks of hair behind her ear, only to have the wind tousle it immediate after. “Hell’s bells,” she swore. “Hair’s too short to keep tied back and too long to be out of my way. I ought to just shave it all off.”

She was startled by the sudden weight of a large metal hand on her shoulder. “Breathe,” Danse said, his deep voice little more than a murmur. With his other hand, he plucked the hat off his head and set it gently back onto her own head, which helped to pin down her unruly mop of hair. “No, don’t look through the scope yet. Close your eyes. Breathe, soldier.”

Now shame burned within her. She wanted to protest that she was fine, but she knew that he would know it was a lie. And the feel of his touch felt good, so good… Shutting her eyes obediently, Noel forced herself to take one deep breath, then another, then a third. She felt some of the tension ease out of her shoulders as she flexed the fingers of her right hand, closing them into a fist, then opening them again.

“That’s better. I know you’re worried about the kids. We’ll get them back,” His voice was barely above a whisper as he crouched down beside her. He gave her shoulder a little squeeze. “Good?”

She wasn’t good. _Good_ was somewhere far out of her reach. _Good_ belonged to some other woman who wasn’t filled with shame and rage and malice that she intended to direct fully on other human beings, despite it being partially misplaced. Killing these raiders wouldn’t get Shaun back. But she could pretend it would help for awhile. No, _good_ was far beyond her grasp. But she was better, at least. Calm enough that she was able to gently, carefully, almost lovingly box up her hates and tuck them away to save them for later. When she spoke, her voice was steady. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Open your eyes.” He said, releasing his grip on her shoulder and rising.

Noel opened her eyes. Her hand curled around her rifle, a lover’s caress on the trigger. She lined up her sights on the first raider, breathing in. Exhaled. Fired.

The other raider turned at the sound of his companion’s body hitting the concrete. He panicked—she could hear him shouting, calling for help, as he ran toward a ruined car to seek cover. Noel led the shot. The raider was maybe two feet from the car when she fired.

“Excellent shooting.” Danse commented as he offered her his hand, pulling her to her feet with ease.

“They’ll know we’re here. I couldn’t take the second one out before he started shouting.” She muttered, slinging her rifle over her shoulder and across her back.

“That’s fine by me,” he said, considering her for a moment. “You’ll draw the turret, and I’ll destroy it. It should only take one shot from my rifle to take it out.”

“Yes, sir.” Noel replied quickly. She started to head for the rickety, rusted fire escape stairs they’d climbed to get to the top of their perch but the paladin halted her.

“We need to hurry so they don’t have any extra time to prepare. Come here. We’ll jump.”

“Jump?” The word came out as a squeak. Had she heard him right? He wasn't serious. He couldn't be serious. She hated heights, was terrified of the feeling of falling.

He snorted at that, shaking his head. “Well, I’ll jump. You just hold onto your hat.” With that, Danse scooped her up with one arm, as easily as he handled the rifle in his other hand. Cradling her to his chest like she was a baby animal, he took several steps back, getting ready for a running start.

Somewhere, nestled down between her anger and stress was a sort of vague, wordless enjoyment at him carrying her like this. Unfortunately, it was rather eclipsed by the realization that he was about to jump off a building with her, and the sudden clutch of terror that seemed to squeeze all the air out of her lungs.

The paladin took off, broad strides carrying him toward the edge of the roof with alarming rapidity.

Noel forgot about holding onto her hat. She forgot about being quiet. The entire world seemed to shrink to a single point—the paladin’s armored chest. Both her hands managed to find the handles on his armor and she gripped them until pain ran up and down her fingers. “Danse—Danse, no, no, _NO_ -!”

He jumped.

Noel couldn’t even keep her eyes open. She heard the rush of air all around her, her eyes squeezed shut so tightly that she thought she might crush her eyeballs with her own eyelids. She felt as if her other senses had grown intensely more aware—of the smooth, unyielding feel of the handles in her grip, of the scent of him, of the sound of her own panicked hyperventilating acting as a staccato counter to the man’s own smooth, deep breaths. Hell, it felt as if time had slowed down somehow—she knew, logically, that the apartment building wasn’t that tall, but it felt as if they were falling for an eternity. For a moment, she felt almost, _almost_ weightless, anchored to reality only by the crushing grip of Danse’s arm holding her against himself, her knees bent and tucked upward, braced against his opposite arm.

The crash as he hit the ground seemed to be earth-shattering, cracking the concrete of the intersection and jarring her painfully in his grasp. She felt pain flare along her hip as it crashed hard against his armored torso. And then she felt him shift her in his grasp in order to set her feet on the ground.

But she couldn’t make herself open her eyes or relax the death grip she had on the handles on his armor. It wasn’t until Danse gripped her by the arms that she realized she was shaking like a leaf. “Knight.”

Finally, cautiously, she cracked an eye open.

“Come on. It’s over.”

He expected her to move. To keep it together. Noel forced herself to let go of his armor and pushed herself away. She could feel her legs wobbling, threatening to give out as she gulped down lungfuls of air. As she managed to fumble the zipper of her duffel bag open and dig out her shotgun, Noel ground out the words. “Let’s go.”

“Are—are you alright?” he asked hesitantly, as if it finally dawned on him that he might have done something wrong.

“I’m fine,” she lied, gripping her weapon and forcing herself to move toward the parking garage. The raiders had definitely heard her screaming and the booming sound of their landing, and they were already gathering near the garage’s entrance. Two were huddled behind a car, a third was inside the garage proper behind a wall—all three with guns, and two more, wearing a mishmash of metal framework and leather to form a crude sort of armor, were advancing slowly. One carried what seemed to be a metal police baton with a charge pack attached. It crackled and spat sparks. The other had a shotgun of his own. The turret, meanwhile, still hummed, waiting to acquire a target.

“Shit! It’s the Brotherhood!” the spotter behind the wall shouted.

“What do you want?! This is our territory! Back off now!” the one with the shotgun called.

Noel didn’t even bother to answer. It was all she could do to keep her anger and her frustration and the fear she’d felt during the jump reined in. Keep it together. Keep it together. She could lose it later. The kids were counting on her. Think of the kids. Keep it together.

She was aware of Danse’s heavy footfalls behind her. “Get ready. Shotgun’s armor doesn’t cover his stomach.” He muttered.

She looked closer, saw that he was right, and nodded. “I’ll get him.”

“Go.” The word, uttered softly in that deep voice that she’d come to draw so much comfort from, gave her strength. He was backing her up. He would take care of her. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Noel forced her legs to keep moving despite the jitters.

“What the hell is wrong with you?! I said back off!” the raider shouted. He started to lift his shotgun.

Noel was quicker. She aimed for the stomach and fired. Then all hell broke loose.

The raiders opened fire. The turret locked on and started firing. She heard the by now familiar sound of Danse firing his rifle back as she broke into a sprint, nearly barreling into the raider with the baton. He swung at her, but she managed to grab ahold of his arm, straining to hold him back. He was so much stronger than her, though, and bearing down…

She heard the turret explode, heard the sound of parts clattering noisily to the pavement. The other raiders were hesitating to fire on her, and she realized that the man with the baton was shielding her from a clear shot. She saw the spark of realization in his eyes, too, and he started to try to force them to turn. Her boots skidded and scuffed at the ground as she tried to hold her ground while not being electrocuted by the baton.

“Little bitch—“ he grunted, edging a foot out to try and hook it behind her ankle. He shoved an arm forward, twisting, and Noel shrieked in agony as she felt the sudden bite of the baton against her neck, sending jolts running through her body.

Fortunately, that current forcing all of the muscles in her arm to involuntarily spasm caused Noel pulled the trigger on her shotgun. The angle was poor because of their wrestling and it was hardly a killshot, but at such short range she could hardly miss. While half the buckshot scattered out into the empty air, some did find its target in the raider’s side. Howling in pain, he shoved her away and dropped his baton in order to clutch at his side.

And then Danse was there, roaring past her with the heavy thump of steel on stone, and he opened fire on the raider behind the wall when he stuck his head out. The laser fried the unfortunate man. Without hesitating, he grabbed a grenade from its spot near his waist, yanking it away from the pin. He threw it into the broken-out window of the car the other two were hiding behind, then whirled away, grabbing ahold of Noel’s arm and breaking into a run. “Come on!”

Despite her legs seeming to protest the movement, she ran, wobbling, after him.

When the grenade went off, the blast was still enough to knock them both clean off their feet. Noel hit the ground with a thump and a groan, accidentally biting her tongue as she did so. Danse landed beside her with a metallic screech. The taste of blood filled her mouth as she curled her arms up and over her head in an attempt to shield herself from the debris, which she could hear falling all around them.

Then she was curled into safety as the paladin grabbed her by the waist and hauled her over to himself, shielding her from the debris with his armored body. As she spat out a mouthful of blood onto the pavement, a sudden sort of realization struck her.

When he’d pushed her down in the brewery, he’d given her a bruise on the side and a bump on the back of the head. But he’d saved her life.

Just now, he’d traded what could have been a serious injury for a few more bumps and bruises and a bite to her tongue that would heal.

And when he’d leapt off the building with her in tow, she’d been frightened—terrified, even—but he’d gotten them to the ground quickly. And she wanted to save the children as soon as possible... and he knew it.

He wasn’t perfect. Neither was she. But then again, life wasn’t perfect either. The idea that doing what was good for someone else should have been painless and gentle was what she’d grown up hearing. The stories they’d fed her as a girl had been so simple. Rapunzel would let down her hair for the prince and he would climb up to her and they would escape together. The stories never mentioned how bad it must have hurt to have a man climb a tower with the sole aid of the hair attached to a woman’s scalp.

But that thought made her realize, in a single, crystallizing moment, that all the things that were really worth it in life were worth enduring pain over. Suffering bruises and discomfort was worth it if it meant living. Facing one’s fears was worth it if it meant being able to accomplish something good and help those who needed it.

Rolling onto her back, Noel stared up at Danse for what felt like the first time really, truly seeing him. His dark eyes seemed to burn into her, holding her gaze captive with an intensity that left her aching deep down in her chest. “Are you alright?” he asked earnestly. She realized then that he’d seen her spitting up blood and that probably looked a hell of a lot more alarming than it actually was.

“Just bit my tongue. Should have been smart and kept my mouth closed. I’ll have to remember that for next time.” She replied, in a voice that was far steadier than she felt.

The paladin nodded and eased away from her, getting to his feet. “Come on. Let’s go get the kids.”

She pushed herself upright with a grunt, wincing. Her muscles were already aching in protest. She didn’t want to think about how bad she’d feel in the morning. But that was a problem for tomorrow. And it would be worth it.

The two swept into the parking garage, weapons at the ready, but there was no sign of any other hostiles. “Must have been a small group.” Danse commented.

“Hancock had said that the group only started hanging around after we killed that pack pf super mutants near here. Probably they were too weak to hold any area on their own in comp-”

“Is someone there?” a high, thin voice called. A little girl’s voice. “Help us!”

“Let us out, please! I wanna go home!” another voice, one that sounded even younger.

“Hang on!” Noel shouted. “Where are you?” The garage was dark.

“The bottom level, I think—we’re in a cage. There’s a lantern nearby. Please let us out!” the girl called back, her voice bouncing and echoing wildly.

“We need to find the ramp down.” She said, gripping Danse’s arm. The knowledge that the children were unharmed had given her a last surge of strength that she didn’t know she had.

“Let’s split up and find it, then.” He replied, and so they went.

Noel cursed under her breath as she blundered into a parked car and finally decided to power on the light on her Pip Boy. The thin green light helped a little, though it gave everything a ghastly tint as she looked around. “Ah yes. Green garbage. My favourite.” She muttered as the stark glow passed over a few piles of trash.

“Soldier! I’ve found it!” Danse’s voice drew her attention, and she cautiously edged her way toward where it had come from.

“On my way! Go get them! I’ll be right there.” She called back, and heard his heavy footfalls tromp off deeper into the garage.

As she was heading down the ramp, she caught sight of the glow of the lantern the girl had mentioned. She saw the paladin approach the cage and begin to open it, then recoil. Something was wrong. Dread nestled in her stomach like a stone. Noel broke into a jog, approaching the scene. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Danse turned, his expression angry. Two frightened little faces stared up beseechingly from behind the crude bars of the cage. A boy and a girl. The ugly green glow of her Pip Boy’s light highlighted the twisted flesh and pockmarks on their faces. And she realized at once what made Danse stop, even as her heart twisted in her chest in sympathy for them.

_They’re ghouls._


	7. Far Away

_They’re ghouls._

“Please let us out.” The girl was saying. She was clearly the older of the two—ten, maybe? Twelve?—while the boy couldn’t have been any older than seven. Both of them clutched at the bars of the cage.

“Hang on,” Noel said, trying to keep her voice calm and soothing. She reached for the lock and grabbed a bobby pin from one of the pouches on her belt.

Danse stopped her though, grabbing ahold of her arm. “Knight—“ he began.

She whirled to glare at him. Judging by the look of surprise on his face, she must have managed a pretty venomous stare. “What?” she hissed. Maybe he’d take the hint and just stay quiet. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything. Maybe he’d just let it go and they could talk about it later…

But this was Danse, and he was honest to a fault. He dragged her away a few paces so the children couldn’t hear. “They’re ghouls.”

“Wait! Where are you going?” the girl cried. The little boy buried his face against her stomach and started to cry.

The sound broke Noel’s heart. “We’ll be right there, I promise! I’m not going anywhere.” She called, trying to reassure them. She couldn’t keep her voice from wavering as she turned to the paladin, muttering quietly. “And?”

“Well, they’re… they’re not human.” He said, as if he couldn’t understand why he was having to state such an obvious fact to her.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” she demanded in a hiss. _Please don’t say it, don’t say anything, just let it go, Danse…_

“Knight, you know how the Brotherhood feels about—“

She slapped him.

She slapped him so hard she felt her hand sting and little shocks run all the way up her already sore arm. She heard the two children draw sharp little breaths, stunned into silence.

Danse stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what she’d done, his dark eyes wide in shock. His cheek was already turning red as he raised his own hand to touch it. “Noel…” Slowly, hesitantly, he reached for her, as carefully as if she'd been made of glass.

“ _Don’t!_ Just don’t,” she shouted, backing away from him a pace and pushing his hand away. She couldn’t keep her voice down. All of her frustration and fury, all of the anger she’d been trying to keep checked burst free from her like a dam, and like a flood it seemed like it would destroy anything in its path. “What the hell is _wrong_ with you, Danse?! They’re kids! They’re scared kids and they’ve been locked up down here in the dark and they miss their families! What the fuck are you suggesting, that we leave them locked up down here to fucking starve to death!?” She turned away, breathing hard, jamming her hand into her pack to try and find her screwdriver.

“Noel—I didn’t mean…“ he began again, uneasily.

She wheeled on him, rearing back like a viper. “What, you would have rather done them a mercy and shot them?!”

“Noel, calm down. Of course that’s not what I’m saying,” His expression clouded, grew angry. He tried again to reach out for her hand. “Come on, just take a deep breath and—“

She pushed at his chest, a sob bubbling up from her lips. “Don’t touch me!”

Whether it was the shove—though it didn’t even move him—or the fact that she was hysterical or her shouting, he stopped and drew back a step. “I’m… sorry, Noel.” He said, his voice soft.

“Just… just go.” She ground the words out, each syllable feeling as though she was driving a knife through her heart. She angrily pulled her glasses off and wiped at her eyes.

“Go?” he repeated, as if not sure of what he was hearing.

“Yeah. Go. Go back to the Prydwen, or Sanctuary, or—wherever. Go wherever you want,” she forced herself to say. “I’m going to take the kids back to Goodneighbor. I'm sure you won’t want to be around.”

He was silent for a long time. Noel resolutely kept her gaze turned away. She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t. If she did, she’d break. She could feel the tears stinging at her eyes, threatening to fall. If she looked at him, she’d start crying and beg for forgiveness and tell him how sorry she was and that she didn’t mean it. She’d beg him to stay.

But she didn’t look at him, and she held her silence. And eventually, the paladin turned and walked away.

Noel walked back to the cage and the now-silent children, pushing her glasses back on. Kneeling in front of the lock, she fed the bobby pin and screwdriver into it with shaking hands. Adjusted. Turned. Snapped the pin. Dug in her pocket for another. Fed it in. Adjusted. Turned. Snapped the pin.

By the time she’d gotten the third pin into the lock, she could hardly see it for the glaze of tears that obscured her vision. All her anger had gone out of her and she was tired, so tired, and her heart ached, and—

A small hand on her shoulder made her glance up. It was the little boy, watching her, clutching at the girl’s leg with his other hand as if for balance.

She was so tired. But she couldn’t quit yet. Sniffling, rubbing at her eyes to wipe away the tears, she went back to the lock. “My name’s Noel,” she made herself say. “What are your names?”

“I’m Rebecca,” the girl whispered, as if afraid that speaking any louder would set Noel to crying again. “And this is my brother, Adam.”

“Hi Rebecca. Hi Adam,” Finally, she got the lock open. Rising, she opened the door and offered her hands to the pair to help them out of the cage. Rebecca got out easily enough, but Adam stumbled as he did so. He seemed to be favouring his left leg badly. “What’s wrong, sweetie? Are you hurt?”

He nodded, suddenly shy, and glanced to his sister.

Rebecca spoke for him. “They hit him. The other night. We were crying and—both of us, I mean—and they told us to be quiet, and I did but he didn’t. And then one of them opened up the cage and hit him, and—“ Her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Shhh… it’s okay, honey. It’ll be alright. Can I see?” she asked Adam then, holding up her hands. The boy nodded, watching her, and she gently touched at his leg, starting at his ankle and moving up toward his knee. When she got to his thigh, probing lightly at it with her fingers, the boy whimpered in pain. He seemed to be able to put some weight on it, but not much. And Noel was no doctor. Maybe it was a fracture…?

“Can you wiggle your toes?” she asked uncertainly.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “But my leg hurts.”

“I know, honey. I’m sorry. Don’t worry, I’ll get you back to Goodneighbor. Someone there will be able to fix it. In the meantime…” Noel fumbled in her bag for a moment, finding a stimpack. “This should help with the pain, at least. Okay?”

“I don’t like needles.” He mumbled, but obediently stuck his skinny little arm out all the same.

She felt herself smile in spite of herself. “Me either. But it’ll help,” Carefully, she pressed the needle into his arm and pushed down on the plunger. The boy winced at the stick of the needle, but then sighed quietly in relief. “Better?”

Adam nodded. “Thanks, Noel.”

“You’re welcome. Now, let’s get out of here, okay? Your parents are gonna be so happy to see you.” She said, rising.

Rebecca smiled at that and took her right hand. Adam took her left hand and the three started to move… though it became immediately apparent that the boy would never make the trip on his injured leg.

Noel instinctively found herself wishing Danse was there. He would know what to do. Or he would have been able to easily carry the boy, but—she shoved the thought away, trying to push the bleak feeling in her chest with it. She’d have to carry the boy herself. “C’mere,” She said, making herself smile. Adam reached for her as she scooped him up, grunting with the effort. Not for the first time, she wished that she was stronger. Careful as she could, she adjusted him so he was straddled against her hip, looping one arm around him to hold him in place. His own arms went around her neck. “Ah—okay… okay, there we go. Comfy?”

“Yeah.” He mumbled, smiling at her.

Noel reached down with her other hand, taking Rebecca’s hand once more. And that was how they made their way out of the parking garage. A small voice in the back of her head reminded her how dangerous this was. If they were attacked, how would she ever get her weapons and protect the kids? She wished that Danse…

No. No, she couldn’t think that way. Had she really become so reliant on him? When had that happened? Besides, he wouldn’t have wanted to help anyway. How could a man who was so good, so protective, be so wrong about something like this? How could the same man who had run into a firefight to save a pair of children decide to hesitate when it actually came to freeing them—just because of the way their skin looked?

That didn’t… it didn’t fit with everything she understood about Danse as a person. The man had wanted to help the children at first. No… no, it was the Brotherhood rhetoric that had been talking then, she knew it. Not for the first time, she wondered if she’d done the right thing by signing up to help them. It was a precarious position she found herself in. On the one hand, the Brotherhood was the best bet as far as organization and technology and willingness to help humanity recover from the war. And it was probably her best chance at getting help finding Shaun. And it really was a family—a bunch of people who would lay down their lives to protect one another.

But on the other hand… some of the tenets that she supposed must have come down from the top and been ingrained into the organization as a whole were… Terrible. She understood the need to put down feral ghouls. They were mindless, motivated only by hunger, without conscience. But regular ghouls—ghouls like Hancock and Rebecca and Adam… they were people. They had hopes and dreams and fears. They were as different from feral ghouls as night and day. And Synths… what about Nick? She didn’t care what anyone told her—not Danse or Maxson or anyone. Nick was a person. He had his own motivations and a moral code and he’d dedicated his life to helping other people.

Maybe she wasn’t right for the Brotherhood.

Maybe she should just quit. Leave it.

But the Brotherhood still seemed like the best chance of her finding reliable leads to get Shaun back, and… the thought of never seeing Danse again… That thought was a painful ache in her chest, one that left her feeling a desolate and empty as the wasteland. What if she never saw him again? What if she’d pushed him away for good?

The thought was unbearable. She couldn’t think about that. Not now. She had to be strong for just a little longer. Once she got the kids back to Goodneighbor and safety, then she could fall apart. Not until them.

The sun was already starting to dip low behind the buildings, shrouding the streets in a gathering dusk. They’d barely made it a mile, she thought to herself in frustration. The going had been slow, though. Between Rebecca’s short legs and the fact that Noel was struggling to carry Adam such a distance… maybe they could reach Goodneighbor tomorrow. But certainly not tonight. And they needed to find a place to stay for the night. The streets had been blessedly quiet, but she was worried what might come out after dark.

Rebecca looked as tired as she felt, and Adam was already nodding in and out on her shoulder. As they neared the corner of the street, she caught sight of a little café that had long since been boarded up. The tables and chairs outside were strewn around, but the structure looked sound.

“C’mon. We’ll see about camping out here for the night.” She murmured, gently leading Rebecca toward the door. The place was silent. Carefully, she eased the door open and looked around. A thick layer of dust covered the floor, but the place was apparently untouched, and had been so for some time. She felt anxious about how easily the door had opened, but that the place hadn’t been looted. Still, it was empty—a sweep of the building after carefully depositing the kids down near the kitchen had proved as much. A trip to the kitchen had provided a bounty enough for a small feast, which she was also grateful for—cans of oranges and cans of beans, and a large can of tomato sauce. A narrow staircase led to the second floor which had apparently been where the café’s owner had lived. There was even a bed still standing in the corner of the bedroom. Noel put the kids to bed and covered them up with her blanket so they could nap while she worked on dinner.

The power in the kitchen had long since gone out, of course, so she went outside to cook, building a the biggest fire she dared (tiny) and getting a pot going with the tomato sauce, some of the beans, and a side of roast Brahmin that she chopped up into bite-sized pieces with her knife. It ended up making a sort of poor-man’s chili, and while it wasn’t the most flavorful, spicy dish, it would at least be edible—and filling. Rebecca and Adam had to be hungry. She knew she should have been too, after running around all day and fighting.

But she wasn’t. There was an empty pit in her stomach and she didn’t want food.

She wanted Danse.

She wanted the security his presence gave her. She wanted the quiet sound of his breathing as he checked over his rifle. She wanted the way he’d looked at her, peaceful and relaxed, when they were on the roof of the police station together.

_Lost your husband._

_Lost your son._

Now she’d lost the only man who made her feel safe, like her life could ever go right again.

She was listlessly stirring the chili when she heard the sound of quiet feet creeping down the staircase in the café.

“Noel?” Rebecca asked, her voice quiet as she crept over to the little fire.

“What is it, sweetie? Couldn’t sleep?” she asked, hurriedly wiping at her eyes with the pad of her thumb.

The girl sat down beside her. “Is that dinner? It smells good.”

“It’ll be ready soon.” She replied, careful to keep her face turned away.

“—Noel? Are you crying?”

She couldn’t even make herself speak to answer. She was too afraid that she’d break down if she tried. After a moment she felt Rebecca’s hand curl around her own. And then she really did break down, burying her face against her knees to muffle the sound of her crying, her shoulders shuddering with the force of trying to contain it all. The little girl stayed silent until the worst of it was over and she’d finally managed to sit up again.

“Do… do you wanna talk about it?”

Noel made herself smile, giving the girl’s hand a squeeze. “It’s nothing you should have to worry about, Rebecca. But thank you.”

The girl regarded her with big, solemn eyes, her sagging skin ruddy in the firelight. “It’s about that man who made you cry earlier, right? Is he your boyfriend?”

“No, no… nothing like that,” she replied, shifting to gently stroke at the girl’s thin blonde hair. “He’s… a friend of mine. And he’s a good man, Rebecca, I promise. I know I yelled at him earlier, and I wish I hadn’t but… he works for some people who believe some very wrong things. And now he believes those things, too, even though he shouldn’t.”

“The Brotherhood, right? They hate ghouls, I know.”

The girl’s matter-of-fact answer made Noel’s heart twist painfully. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Are you part of the Brotherhood?”

“Yes. Well, maybe. At least, I was. I don’t know anymore. I yelled at my commanding officer. I don’t know if he’ll forgive me. When I joined, I… I joined because they said they wanted to protect humanity. And I liked that. But I don’t like a lot of the other things they believe in.”

“Do you… really think he would have left us down there? Or…”

Noel exhaled in a sigh, shaking her head. “No. I don’t really think he would have. Danse is a good man,” she murmured. “Deep down, I think he would have done what was right. C’mon, it should be good. Let’s eat, hm? Will you please go wake your brother up?” Rising, she took the pot away from the fire and poured some water over it to put it out. When she was satisfied, she led Rebecca back inside the café and put the pot on the counter, serving up three big bowls of chili. Rebecca hurried past her and up the stairs.

It was a balancing act, getting bowls and spoons and purified water all up the steps without dropping anything, but Noel managed it. The two children were already sitting on the bed, waiting eagerly for dinner, though Adam was still yawning and sleepy.

None of them talked much as the kids ate and Noel picked listlessly at her own meal. It tasted alright, but she gave up on trying to eat after having a few spoonfuls. She just didn’t have any appetite. One the kids had finished eating, she tucked them into bed again and headed downstairs to clean up.

_What have I done?_ She asked herself as she rinsed the pot and the bowls. _What the hell have I done?_

What would she do once she got the children safely to Goodneighbor? She expected they could make it there by the end of the day tomorrow, if they didn’t run into trouble. And what then? Go back to wandering around the Commonwealth alone? Go crawling back to the Prydwen with her tail tucked between her legs? Fall to her knees and beg Danse to forgive her?

Finally, when there was nothing else to do, she made herself trudge back up the stairs, her muscles aching and weary. Rebecca stirred and woke up at the noise despite her being quiet, but she relaxed when she saw Noel. The girl motioned her over and patted the space on the bed between her and Adam, then slipped out of the bed.

She knew it would be too easy to fall asleep if she got comfortable, but even so… She was too tired and too weary and too hurt to try to argue. Noel crawled into the bed, leaning back to rest her back against the wall. At least she might stay awake if she stayed seated. Adam turned at the sudden addition of warmth and nestled in beside her. Rebecca crawled back into the bed too. Draping a protective arm over each of the children, Noel leaned her head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling as she listened to Rebeccas’s breathing slowly even out.

_Lost your husband._

_Lost your son._

_Lost your friend._

She didn’t even seem to have any tears left. There was nothing left in her—she’d lost everything else. And so she sat silently in the dark, watching the thin sliver of moonlight that crept in past the boarded-up window as it slowly crawled across the wall.


	8. The End of the World

The sun looked like it was up—at least, the little corner of sky Noel could see from where she was seated had turned from black to navy to grey and finally, slowly, to a rosy shade. She’d nodded off a few times in the night, only to shake herself awake fifteen or twenty minutes later. Now she was exhausted, and she wanted nothing more than to sleep. Still, she was glad she’d managed to make it through most of the night; she’d heard gunfire some distance away, though she couldn’t tell how close it was. Still, if that meant there was trouble around, it was best not to linger.

Gently, she shook Rebecca and Adam awake. The two sat up, bleary-eyed and yawning. Rebecca rubbed a hand at her face as if her grogginess was a physical thing that had sunk into the pockmarks and blotches on her face that she could dispel if she just scrubbed hard enough. Adam tried to curl back up and go back to sleep, but Noel managed to herd him toward the edge of the bed to sit.

“Morning,” she said, making herself smile as she opened up a can of oranges. “Who’s hungry?”

Adam mumbled sleepily in the affirmative, and Rebecca managed a nod. “I am.”

“C’mon, eat up. We need to get going early.” She said gently as she pressed the first can to the girl’s hands. Opening up the other can, she handed it over to Adam and watched with approval as the two began to eat.

“How far is it?” Rebecca asked between bites, peering up at her. “To Goodneighbor, I mean.”

“Not far. If we push, we could make it there by lunchtime. How’s your leg feel, Adam?” she asked, kneeling in front of the boy.

“It hurts,” he mumbled.

That was bad news. If the Stimpack she’d given him hadn’t fixed him up after being in his system that long, it was likely something more serious. She’d have to carry him again. “I don’t wanna give you another Stimpack yet. They’re awfully strong. Think you can tough it out til we get you back to your parents?”

“I’m tough.” He said with a tiny smile.

Noel rose, smiling. “Yeah you are.” She made herself eat an orange slice though the thought of food still made her stomach roil in protest. Then she packed up her blanket and checked over her weapons while the kids were finishing up their breakfast. If there was trouble out there—more raiders or super mutants—someone had to have been firing their weapons nearby last night—she wanted to be prepared.

Finally, she managed to pick Adam up and settle him against her hip, though every one of her muscles seemed to scream in protest. She was exhausted and so sore that it seemed like she’d have better luck making a list of the parts that _didn’t_ hurt, rather than everything that did. Taking Rebecca’s hand in her right hand, they headed downstairs and out of the café.

It was, by any standard, a beautiful, perfect morning. Not a cloud in the sky, the sun slowly moving upward and bathing the city in a light so buttery warm it almost seemed to throw a gold shroud over the buildings. Metal and glass shone and glittered in the light.

Noel hated the day for being so perfect. How could anything in the world be right when she felt so wrong on the inside?

Fortunately, there was little chance of managing to stay angry by thinking about it. She could hardly keep a thought in her brain. Her whole body was a map of aches and pains, and she was so tired that all she could focus on was putting one foot in front of the other. Left and right and left and right. Before long, she had to switch Adam to her other side and give her left hip a break because it felt like every step was driving needles down her leg.

Left. Right.

Follow the yellow stripes on the road.

She should have been more careful, she knew. She should have been on high alert. But she was so damned tired.

Left. Right.

It was only when she saw an apartment building that showed signs of recent fighting—bullet holes riddled the pavement as if the shooters in the apartment had been firing at an attacker who had been on the ground— that she managed to shake herself from her stupor. The smell of gunpowder was in the air too, and blood, and burnt flesh, and ashes. And rotten meat. A cautious glance in the window showed that it had certain been a group of super mutants. Green bodies, unmoving, were littered all over the lobby of the apartment.

Well, whatever had happened there, it was over. For that, she was grateful.

Left. Right.

Noel had to stop again to move Adam back to her other side. Her duffel bag full of gear felt like it must have weighed twice what it normally did. Every step felt plodding and graceless and her arms and legs felt like lead weights. And she was so dizzy... and the bright sunlight was giving her a terrible headache as it reflected off every remotely shiny surface in the area. When they finally caught sight of Goodneighbor on the horizon, Noel nearly cried in relief. The sight of the town’s walls gave her one last burst of strength, but she knew she was running on fumes.

She saw movement—a sentry seemed to be looking their way, though it was difficult to tell from their distance. But then she heard the shouting, and she knew that it must have been so. Noel didn’t even have the strength to lift her arm to wave. Rebecca did though, and so did Adam, and the children’s exuberance turned to gleeful shouts.

“Look! They’re sending somebody out!”

“We’re here!”

“Do you think Mom and Dad will be with them?”

Rebecca’s insistent tug on her arm helped propel her forward, though she was fairly certain that it was only inertia guiding her and that she might careen out of control at a moment’s notice. A man and a woman rushed forward, and at the sight of them Rebecca let out a choked sob. She pulled away from Noel and ran to meet the two, barreling into the woman’s legs and nearly knocking her clean off her feet. Noel approached more sedately and passed Adam over to the man with arms that felt like jelly.

“Mom! Dad!” Rebecca was weeping freely, clinging to the woman’s skirt—their mother was apparently a normal human. The kids’ father, who was every bit as ghoulish as his children, clutched Adam to himself and stared at Noel with eyes shining with tears.

“You—you saved them,” he choked out. “When Hancock told me that two soldiers from the Brotherhood were going after them—I didn’t think…”

“Noel brought us back! She carried Adam all the way here!” Rebecca was telling her mother in between sobs and her mother kissing every inch of her face.

“Oh, thank you… we can never repay you; thank you.” The woman wept, trying to hold Rebecca and Adam and her husband all at once. The four clung to each other like the survivors of a shipwreck.

“It’s my pleasure. But his leg’s hurt. He needs a doctor to look at him.” Noel said, feeling her shoulders sag. She should have felt happiness at seeing the family reunited. And she did, as much as she could feel happy at the moment. But seeing that little family unit all snug and back together made her ache.

What family did she even have anymore?

Finally, Hancock came jogging out of the gates. “Noel! You found ‘em!” A second look pulled him up short. “Shit, you look terrible, what the—Noel, where’s the walking garbage can?” A look of doubt passed over his face.

“I—we had an argument. I sent him away. Can we please go sit down?”

Her body seemed to take the phrase “sit down” as a cue, because all of a sudden her legs didn’t seem to want to work anymore. Then again, neither did much of anything else. She was aware of a pair of hands grabbing at her arms, and the sky— blue, blue, so blue...

And then her eyes popped open again, and she was staring at a low, dark ceiling. With a groan, she pushed herself into a seated position, only to realize she was in a bed.

“You know, this is not what I usually mean when I say I have a pretty girl in my bed, but I’ll make an exception for you,” Hancock said as he stirred in his chair, his legs languidly sprawled out. “How you feelin’?”

“Like ass,” she grunted, realizing she had an IV in her arm. “What’s this for?”

“It’s for you because you’re fuckin’ dehydrated. Kids told me you barely ate or drank anything since you found ‘em.”

“The kids—how’s Adam? Is he going to be okay?” she asked. At least the fluid drip had her brain working again, enough to formulate worry again.

Hancock nodded, reaching over to his desk and languidly scooping an inhaler up. Raising it to his lips, he took a deep breath and held it for a moment before slowly exhaling. “Hoooo… yeah, he’ll be fine. Leg’s fractured… the... thigh bone, or whatever the hell it’s called. But he’ll heal.”

Noel let out a relieved sigh and fell back onto the pillow.

“You weren’t really making much sense at the gates. What happened exactly?” Hancock pressed her as he set the inhaler back down on the desk.

_Danse._ She wanted to go back to sleep, to forget all about answering the question, to pretend she hadn’t heard and that when she woke up again everything would be fine.

Slowly, she wet her lips with her tongue. “He… we hadn’t realized that the kids would be ghouls. When he found them, he freaked out, I guess. Couldn’t make up his mind whether doing the right thing was more important than his stupid Brotherhood brainwashing sessions.” She managed to get out. The words were venomous, but she couldn’t force enough inflection into them to make them truly so.

“And you two fought?” he prompted after she’d been silent for several moments.

“Yeah. Well… not really. Mostly I just screamed at him. He—he tried to apologize, but I sent him away. I don’t know where he went. I hit him. I shouldn't have done that. That was... that was wrong of me.” She lifted the arm that wasn’t attached to the IV drip in order to rub a hand across her face.

“Shit… Noel, this is all my fault. I should have though to say something, but—well, I mean I knew it wouldn’t be a big deal to you. But I should’ve considered…”

“No,” she said with a sigh. “No, it’s not your fault. I just… I shouldn’t have yelled, or slapped him. But he never should have hesitated. They were kids—caged up _kids._ Danse isn’t a bad person, Hancock. He’s really not. I know you don’t see it, but… he does so much good. And he’s so selfless; it’s just… I really don’t think he would be the way he is about ghouls and Synths if he wasn’t in the Brotherhood. The leadership believes such awful things, and they pass it down the ranks and everyone else just repeats it like it’s holy. And now—I may never see him again.”

“So what’re you gonna do?” he asked, watching her.

“I don’t—I don’t know,” she whispered, staring up at the ceiling. “What am I supposed to do?”

Hancock let out a sigh. She glanced over at him. He was wearing a smile that looked so out of place on his face. She’d gotten used to his easy grins and smirks. This look was almost sad. “You poor thing.”

“What?” she asked, suddenly defensive.

“You’re in love with the asshole.”

_What?_ Noel stared at him, startled, uncertain. Sure, she was attracted to the paladin physically. She wanted him. But love? It was too absurd. “Bullshit,” She said, forcing herself to laugh. “You’re high.”

“I won’t dispute that because it’s the truth. You shouldn’t either. Have you ever listened to the way you sound when you talk about him? You somehow manage to see good in someone that pretty much anyone outside the Brotherhood would think is the biggest asshole this side of the ocean. And when you look at him—shit, you look like a cow that needs milking.”

“Are you calling me a cow?!” she howled, sitting up. She still felt wobby, but she also was confident that she could find the strength to wrap her hands around Hancock’s neck and throttle him.

“No. You’re a very pretty lady. A little skinny for my own personal taste; I’m more a fan of that “cup runneth over look,” but that’s not the point,” he explained, taking a moment to pantomime squeezing at the air in front of his chest as if cupping a pair of rather ample breasts. Dropping his hands to his sides, he shrugged. “You’re in love with him. There’s no other explanation for it. People don’t just put up with feeling that miserable over another person unless they love ‘em. Look at you. You have one argument with the guy and you worry yourself sick to where you can’t eat.”

Noel stopped and made herself actually listen to the ghoul, made herself give real consideration to what he was saying. She’d loved Nate, in her own fashion, but… what she felt for Danse didn’t feel anything like that. Her feelings for Danse translated as a painful ache in her chest, a longing so powerful it drove her to distraction. She’d written it off as raw sexual attraction, something much stronger than she’d ever felt for Nate. But…

What if he was right?

Hancock watched her for a moment longer before rising and plucking the IV from her arm. “Well?”

She turned the idea around in her mind over and over. The other night, when she’d been in the shower at the police station…

_She climaxed hard around him, burying her face against his neck as her hips shuddered erratically against his, and his own heat exploded within her, filling her, his lips brushing against her ear as he whispered to her—_

_–“I love you,” he breathed, clutching her to himself like he never wanted to let go. “I love you.”_

“Fuck.” She groaned as she pressed her face into her hands.

“I mean, I don’t think a quickie will actually help you with all that mess, or I’d offer,” Hancock teased, not unkindly. He gave her shoulder a little squeeze. “Hey, it’s not all bad.”

“How is literally any of this not bad?”

“Well, you were all worried about never seeing him again, and you can.”

Taken aback, she lifted her face from her hands, peering at him. “What are you saying?”

“Yeah, he’s been outside the city gates for like two hours now, yelling and raising a stink. I told him he could wait outside like a grownup until you were ready to see—him?” he yelped as she burst off the bed.

“You what?! He’s been out there this whole fucking time and you didn’t even let him in?”

“Heeey, Noel. You know him. He’s not really popular in town. Now, folks around here tolerate him when you’re with him cause they trust you and they know you’ll keep him on a short leash, but by himself? It was for his own good. He probably would’ve gotten knifed otherwise.” Hancock was saying, trying to explain, but Noel only half heard him.

Suddenly, it felt like she had a belly full of ice. “How am I gonna apologize?”

Hancock groaned, rolling his eyes and shoving her toward the door. “Please. He’s out there waiting for you, so clearly he wants to talk to you. He’ll give you the time of day. Just go apologize already, shit.” When she continued to balk, he grabbed her firmly by the wrist and all but yanked her out of his bedroom, out of his house, and down the streets of Goodneighbor. People passing by stopped and stared at the spectacle as Hancock waved the gates open.

He was on the other side, a few yards away. His face was smudged with dirt and his armor was dinted in several places from what looked like gunshots… but it was him, and the look on his face held the same apprehension she felt.

“See? I told you she was fine, you giant metal menace,” Hancock hooted with a kind of sadistic glee. “Now you two talk to each other and then you can come back in and rest.” And with that, he shoved her out the gate. The gates rolled shut. And there she was, alone with him.

“Noel—“ he began. Her name on his lips nearly broke her.

“Danse…” she made herself speak, though the words came faintly, as if from someone far away. “Danse, what are you doing here?”

He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture, staring at her from across the lot. “You told me to go wherever I wanted. I—I wanted to go here.”

At those words, her heart seemed to twist so painfully in her chest that she thought she would die. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry; I never should have yelled, I shouldn’t have…” The words came bubbling up before she could stop them. Her eyes burned, and suddenly he was blurry. Hot trails tracked down her cheeks.

“No. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hesitated. They—you were right,” the paladin uttered. “They were just kids.”

She let out a shuddering breath. She knew. She’d known. He never would have actually harmed Rebecca and Adam, or walked away and abandoned them. He would have fussed about Brotherhood standards and protocol the whole way back to Goodneighbor, but he never would have let anything actually happen to them.

Because he was a good man. For all his faults, underneath all his prejudices, he was a good man.

And she loved him.

Danse was staring at her, hesitant. “Noel?”

Noel put one foot in front of the other. Left. Right. Left and right again, and again, faster. She closed the distance between them and threw her arms about the paladin’s armored torso, crashing into him so hard it hurt. She could smell his scent—metal and leather and sweat, mingled with gunpowder, as she buried her face against his chestplate. Her shoulders shook as she wept. She hurt all over, but as she felt the slow pressure of his arms easing around her, holding her…

There had never been a pain so sweet.


	9. Almost Persuaded

Danse held her for a long time, not saying anything. Finally, when she managed to detach her face from the metal plate of his armored chest, he let out a sigh. His expression was one of faint amusement mixed with his usual stern disapproval. “Look at you,” he said quietly. “You’re a mess.”

Indignantly, she smacked him right on the chestplate, leaving her hand stinging. “You _ass!_ Have you looked at yourself lately?” she asked, then took another look at him. The paladin looked as tired as she felt, dark circles under his eyes. And here and there, his power armor had been damaged by gunfire. “Danse—what…”

“I’m fine.” He said, trying to brush away her concern.

Realization hit her. The gunfire she’d heard last night. The dead mutants. How clear and easy her path to Goodneighbor had been. “You… you never left,” she whispered, starting up at him and trying to search his expression. When he didn’t deny it, she felt anger ludicrously bubble up in her stomach. “You—idiot! You went into combat with a bunch of supers by yourself?! You could have gotten yourself killed!”

“And what about you?” he countered. “If I had left, you would have blundered right into the group and gotten yourself and those kids killed.”

She wanted to argue with him. Maybe on a different day, if the two of them both hadn’t been exhausted, she would have. But all she could do was lift her shoulders in a shrug. “I’m—sorry, Danse. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

“I’m sure. I’ll need to repair my suit before we move out again, but considering the fact that we both need to rest and recuperate, that wouldn’t have been right away in any case.”

Noel exhaled. She was staring at him, she knew, and yet she couldn’t seem to bring herself to look away. The comfort offered by his presence, his voice… She’d needed him. “We should… we should go. Into Goodneighbor. So we can rest up, I mean.” She made herself say.

Danse was silent for a long moment, looking down at her with furrowed brows and a gaze she couldn’t interpret. His fingers squeezed at her hips where his hands had come to rest, and the sudden pressure made her draw in a shuddering breath. More than anything, she wanted to kiss him, the dirt on his face and the tears on hers be damned. Slowly, as if moving any faster might cause him to spook and pull away like a wild animal, she lifted her hands to find the handles at the front of his armor. Her fingertips curled around the metal, and—

“Are you two done yet?” Hancock’s voice rasped over them like sandpaper. In an instant, Danse had pulled away, turning to scowl up at the mayor as the ghoul stuck his head over the fence.

“We’ll be right in.” Danse barked, his voice clipped and measured.

Noel tried not to groan in frustration. Hancock’s timing was so perfectly terrible it had to be intentional. It was like one of those cheesy romances that used to show on television during the day. Still, the moment was quite effectively ruined, and there was nothing for the pair to do but troop into Goodneighbor while the gates were open.

Hancock strolled over to meet them and slid right in between Danse and Noel, draping an arm around her waist. “So, I bet you two are hungry. And _thirsty_.” He said, beaming at Noel.

The paladin eyed the ghoul with apparent distaste. “Food would be welcome. Is there anywhere I might be able to work on my armor?” he asked through gritted teeth. It was kind of funny to watch him try so hard to exhibit basic courtesy toward the mayor, Noel had to admit.

“Huh? Oh yeah, you bet. Hell, d’you wanna do that now? I haven’t had a chance to get dinner going, so if you wanted to work on that while Noel and I get busy in the kitchen—ow—“ he said in the same casual tone he’d been speaking in as she smacked him on the arm, “—we can call you in for dinner once it’s done.”

Danse’s lip curled, a muscle in his jaw standing out taut. “Alright.”

Hancock pointed down the street with his free hand. “Keep going that way. You can’t miss the workshop.”

Nodding, Danse tromped off down the street, while Hancock led Noel toward his house. He detached his arm from her waist once the paladin was out of sight.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. “Are you trying to piss him off?”

“Well, yes, obviously,” Hancock said, peering at her owlishly as he guided her into his house. “You’ll thank me later.”

Noel scowled at him over the rim of her glasses as they headed into the kitchen.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. Trust me. I know how men work. Even stuffy assholes like him. You just let your good buddy Hancock handle it,” He said dismissively as he began rooting through his cabinets. “Let’s see… something nice for dinner. Be a peach and peel those tatos for me, will ya?”

And thus, the afternoon went. Hancock stepped out and returned a bit later bearing a freshly-butchered, stunted chicken and looking ridiculously pleased with himself. While the tatos were boiling away on the battered old stove and the chicken was roasting in the oven, the two took a break—Noel to go take a shower, Hancock to get high and sprawl out on the hideously ugly couch squished into his living room. The shower was a wonderful experience, and helped make her feel human again. She’d been dirtier and grittier than she’d realized, and it felt good to change out of her dirty leathers and into a pair of jeans, a tee shirt, and a battered old black leather greaser jacket she’d found during her little expedition to free Nick from Skinny Malone.

When she emerged from the bathroom, the ghoul was in the kitchen again, trying to get a rather dull can opener to work on an ancient can of corn. “Fucking—you rat shit, get in there…” he grumbled, then glanced up. “Oh—hey. I’ve uh—I’ve got everything under control here. Can you go find the garbage can and tell him to get in here and take a shower? He probably fuckin’ reeks and I don’t want him stinking up my kitchen.”

Noel shrugged, nodding. “You bet. Be back in a minute.” As she was leaving the house, she heard the distinct sound of a can being smashed onto a surface, and Hancock’s triumphant cackle. She really didn’t want to know what substance he’d been indulging in while she was in the bathroom. The trip down the street toward the workshop was a quick one, though as she rounded a corner and looked inside, it seemed like her legs stopped wanting to work all of a sudden.

Danse was busily at work, his head bowed as he examined his suit’s right gauntlet, carefully curling and relaxing the plated fingers to test them for their range of motion. Evidently the first thing he’d done had been to hammer out the dents in the armored plates, for they were smoothed out once again—and he had clearly been sweating. The paladin had stripped out of his flight suit to the waist, leaving his upper body bared save for a thin, sleeveless white shirt that looked as if it was practically glued to his torso thanks to the sheen of sweat that covered the rest of him.

She really shouldn’t have been staring. God help her, she needed to open her mouth and say something before he turned around and caught her watching him. Instead, she stayed silent and watched the subtle shift of his muscles underneath the skin of his broad shoulders and powerful arms. It was fascinating, somehow, the way he could do something as simple as shift his grip on the suit or turn to reach for a wrench, and the movement that started at his thick fingertips would translate all the way up his body as the muscles all worked together.

No, if she opened her mouth, she was pretty sure she’d just start wheezing.

His arms were littered with more scars than she could easily count, and she caught a glimpse of another that raked over his collarbone and disappeared under his shirt. His stubble was coming in thicker too, she thought, absently wondering what it would be like to cup his jaw in her hands and feel those tiny hairs scratching at her palms.

After what felt like an eternity, she managed to summon up all of her strength. “Danse.” The single syllable left her feeling drained.

The paladin’s shoulders twitched and he turned to look back at her. “Knight,” He said. Lapsed back into formality and professionalism. She should have expected it, really, but… it had sounded so nice to hear him say her name earlier. Rising, he wipes his hands on his flight suit and grabbed at the hem of his shirt, lifting it to wipe the sweat from his face. “Is dinner ready?”

He’d asked her a question. If only she could answer it. But to do that, first she would have to understand what he’d just said. And that was rather difficult to do, considering her gaze was locked onto his abs. How in the hell was it even fair for one man to be so damned attractive? Dark hair made a narrow trail downward past his navel, bisecting his well-toned abdomen, and the V of his musculature near his hips—

“Knight?”

She turned away abruptly. “Dinner’s almost ready. Hancock wants you to have a shower first.”

The man moved to follow her. “Lead the way.”

Up close, he did smell pretty ripe. That helped to ward off the remembrance of his body that was seemingly burned into her mind, at least for the moment. The smell of food as the two walked into the house was enough to set Noel’s mouth watering. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. Danse quietly excused himself to the shower, and Noel wandered back into the kitchen to help finish setting up for dinner.

Hancock regarded her critically. “Are you seriously wearing that?” he asked.

“What? You saw me in this earlier.” She replied, lifting her shoulders in a shrug as she set the table.

“…Did I?” Hancock squinted. “Well, anyway. Don’t you have something a little less… a little more… y’know…”

“No, I don’t know.” Noel stated flatly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Hancock sighed. He cocked his head, listening as the shower came on. “Something sexier? You know, low cut dress? Skirt? Stockings and high heels?”

“No.”

He groaned. “You’re hopeless. Oh well. C’mon, mash up the tatos and I’ll carve the bird. What’s the paladin like to drink?”

“We usually just drink water… uh, beer. Or whiskey?”

“What backwater swamp did they dig him out of? Next you’ll tell me he drinks moonshine,” Hancock grumbled, digging noisily through his cabinet. “Well, looks like it’ll have to be water.”

“That’s fine. Hancock, why are you doing all this?” she finally asked, peering over at him.

The ghoul huffed. “The way I see it, it’s simple. You did a huge service for me and for the people in my town. Now, they don’t have the money to pay you for saving those kids—“

“But I didn’t do it for money!” she protested.

“I know. You don’t have a selfish bone in that skinny body. Frankly, it’s kind of bizarre. Anyway. Those folks can’t pay you back for saving their kids. I’d offer you caps but I don’t think you’d even take ‘em. So this is how I’m paying you back. We’ll call dinner and your romantic evening my way of repaying you.”

Noel made a noise of consternation in the back of her throat. “Hancock, this really isn’t necessary.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t think it’ll actually work.”

“Sure it will.” He announced as he loaded up a plate with food and carried it off down the hall toward his room.

“Where are you going with that?”

“Don’t question the master at work,” He called raspily back to her. After a moment, he returned to the kitchen. He raised his jet inhaler to his lips and took a deep breath.

Noel stared at him expectantly. The water in the bathroom turned off.

Finally exhaling, the ghoul leaned heavily back against the counter. He slouched there until the door to the bathroom opened, then announced. “You know, I think I shouldn’t have had that last hit. I feel like garbage.”

 _That sly little fucker,_ Noel thought as she realized where he was going with this. Danse entered the kitchen, garbed in a clean tee shirt and fatigue pants, tucked into his boots. His hair was still damp.

“I’m gonna go sleep this off, I think. You two eat. Don’t wait up or anything.” Hancock waved a lazy hand and slithered away from the counter, off toward his bedroom. Where his dinner waited for him.

Noel had to admit, rueful as she was to do so, that Hancock was way too damned clever.

Danse eyed the ghoul with evident distaste, scowling for a moment, before he went to the table and sat down. There was nothing for Noel to do but follow suit. The dinner was a simple one—chicken, mashed tatos, and corn—but it was certainly nicer than whatever they usually ate, either scrounging or forcing down rations on the Prydwen. She served him a scoop of tatos, he served up the bird, and the two lapsed into silence as they enjoyed their first civilized meal in weeks.

Noel found herself anxiously peeking across the table at him. What was she supposed to do? Or say? Wasn’t she supposed to be making witty conversation? The paladin was eating methodically, with the kind of discipline only a soldier could manage. She was rather less careful about her eating—she was ravenously hungry, and he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her.

Taking a sip of her water, she made a stab at conversation. “It’s good, huh?”

His dark glance flicked upward. “It is. I haven’t had a good meal like this in a long time.” He answered. But then… why did he sound so sour when he said it?

“Sorry, I was never much of a cook even in the best circumstances. And when all we usually have is a campfire and cans to cook in…” she attempted to joke.

He shrugged, shoving his corn around his plate. He wouldn’t even look at her. “Hancock’s a good cook. He’s got a good setup here.”

Noel felt her stomach twist uneasily. What had she done wrong now? “Do—would you like to meet with Rebecca and Adam’s parents before we head out of town tomorrow?”

“Why?”

“Well—I mean, I’m sure they’d want to meet the person who gunned down an entire building full of super mutants in order to keep their kids safe.” She managed to get the words out, staring down at her empty plate.

The paladin grunted. “If you want, Knight.”

Frustrated, she scooped up her plate and utensils and rose, moving to the sink and running some water in it. “Forget it.”

As she heard his chair scoot back Noel exhaled, gripping at the edge of the counter. He must have gone.

But then she was aware of a presence behind her, and a pair of large hands planted themselves on the edge of the counter at either side of her, trapping her. Her breath caught in her chest.

“What’s going on between you and Hancock?” his voice was so quiet and so close that for a moment she didn’t actually catch what he’d asked.

“W-what?” she stammered out vaguely.

“You and Hancock,” he repeated. “Are you two–?”

“No!” she exclaimed, twisting around to look up at him wide-eyed. Even without his power armor, the paladin seemed to tower over her, his expression thunderous. “Danse, no—definitely not!”

The look in his eyes disarmed her, seemed to strip her bare as he searched her face, as if for some sign she was lying. His hands moved from the counter to her arms, just above her elbows. “I believe you.”

And then, all at once he leaned downward, pulling her to himself, and stole her lips in a crushing kiss. His mouth was hot, so hot that she thought she’d burn away to cinders at his touch. She’d dreamed of his kisses, imagined how alive with desire she’d feel at his touch. This blew all of her fantasies away in an instant. Her heart felt as if it might burst against her ribs. The paladin’s tongue brushed along her bottom lip, prompting her to part her lips and let it slip into her mouth, and she felt pleasure roll through through her all the way down to her knees. When his grip shifted from her arms to her narrow waist, she draped her arms up and over her shoulders, fingers burying in his dark hair.

Coherent thoughts had been thrown aside. The only thought she managed to summon up was a deep, contented hum in her veins. _Finally._ His thumbs traced against the angles of her hips in the narrow spot between the hem of her shirt and the top of her jeans, and the feeling of his skin against her own was so sweet and so intoxicating she could have cried.

When her hands fell to grip at his shoulders, greedily caressing and grasping at every inch of him within reach, he scooped her up and easily set her to rest on the counter, her legs splayed to either side of him. She could feel the heat of him beginning to stiffen as he pressed against her through the fabric of his fatigues and her jeans. As he moved to kiss and bite at her neck, she moaned aloud in bliss, her hips rolling forward against his own—

–and then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

Danse pulled away from her abruptly and backed up a pace, breathing hard, dark eyes staring at her in alarm.

“Wh-“ She felt lost, scrambling to try and connect her thoughts as she caught her breath. Cautiously, she edged off the counter. She wanted to reach for him, but the way he was staring at her… “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and backed up another step. “I… I am sorry, Knight. I never should have—that was wrong of me. I forgot myself.”

The fire that had been singing in her veins ran suddenly cold. “I—Danse, I… it’s okay. I wanted—“

“No!” he said loudly, cutting her off before she could finish the sentence. His expression was angry. Pained. “It’s not okay. I’m your commanding officer.”

“Danse…” she could hear the plea creeping into her voice.

He put his leader-face on and retreated behind his professional demeanor. As if nothing had happened. “No, Knight. I-I… Please be ready to leave the town at daybreak. Excuse me.”

And just like that, he was gone.


	10. The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore

“Knight—are you feeling well?”

Noel glanced up, distracted. “Huh? What’s up, Danse?” she asked, arranging her lips into something akin to a smile.

“You’ve been cleaning that rifle barrel for almost fifteen minutes now,” the paladin said, watching her with dark eyes and a look she couldn’t interpret. “Do you… want to talk about what happened at the Memory Den?”

Noel hesitated, looking away from him as she gently set her rifle aside. The past week had been painful. After Danse had kissed her—and she’d kissed him—he’d not said a word about it, and neither had she. The two had managed to be polite, though distant, with one another while leaving Goodneighbor and while on the road. Over the course of the next days, during their scavenging and collecting documents for the Brotherhood, they’d even been able to start acting more or less like they had before the night in the kitchen, and like the kiss had never happened.

Except that it had.

Noel had often found herself staring at the paladin before, but now just looking at him was maddening. Every time she looked at him, she wanted to talk to him about that evening, to drag it out into the open and force them both to be honest. And she wanted to kiss him. She thought about it almost constantly—not in the front of her mind, but always as a fleeting idea, half-formed in her subconscious. She could only guess at how he felt, though one night as she was getting ready to fall asleep she could have sworn she’d caught him watching her—though without her glasses on, it was hard to tell, and probably only wishful thinking.

She wanted to tell him everything about what had happened. Kellogg, his memories, Shaun… but now she was afraid to tell him anything. The idea that opening up to him about anything might have provoked too much familiarity and caused them to pull away from one another again had popped into her head one afternoon. She didn’t want to risk it. Even this relationship, this tentative half-friendship, was better than nothing.

And besides…

Maybe if she didn’t admit that her baby wasn’t her baby anymore, but a ten year old boy who wouldn’t know her… it wouldn’t have to be true.

Noel picked up her shotgun to clean it, cradling it to herself for a moment. _Childish. So childish._

She wanted comfort. But she was certain Danse couldn’t—or wouldn’t—give her that.

“I found a holotape today,” he said quietly, tentatively, pulling her from her brooding. “If you want to listen to it, that is. I know you have a collection of the things in the bottom of your bag.”

“Okay.” She made herself reply, glancing up. She _did_ like collecting holotapes. His arm was outstretched, the battered tape in his hand. It had been labeled with clumsy writing at some point, now badly faded. She took the tape from him, glancing at it before sliding it into her Pip-Boy’s player. “”Dad’s Favourites.” What do you think it–” she fell silent as the tape started.

It was music. Old music, from long before the war, scratchy in parts, a low violin line and a guitar leading into the low voice of a man as he sang. It was a song she’d heard before. She’d never been much of a fan of the style, before, but it was so unexpected and took her right back to simpler days…

“Guess “Dad” liked country music, huh?” she asked quietly, leaning back against the raised lip of the roof they were camped out on.

Danse nodded. “This is nice.” He said, leaning forward to stir at the fire.

“Yeah. Is it—okay if we listen a little longer? I know this song. Kind of curious if I know some of the others on the tape.”

He glanced out across the crumbling cityscape. “We swept the area thoroughly. It should be fine.”

“Thanks, Danse.” She met his gaze for a moment and looked away, turning her attention to her shotgun as she worked on it.

The silence that stretched between them probably would have been uncomfortable, but for the music as the holotape rolled. When the second song started, she found that she recognized it right away. Silently, she mouthed the words along with the singing.

_“Make the world go away and get it off my shoulders. Say the things you used to say and make the world go away.”_

“You know it.” He said. She could feel his dark eyes on her.

“Yeah. If you don’t want to listen, I can turn it off.”

“No,” he said. “No, that’s not necessary. I like this kind of music.”

“Don’t tell me that, Danse. That gives me an excuse to play this thing all the time.”

“You like music?” the paladin asked.

“More than anything, just about,” she confessed. “I used to listen to music all the time at home. Used to drive Nate crazy.”

“Kni—Noel. Would you like to talk about anything tonight? Off the record. Your son, or your husband?”

She was afraid to talk to him. But she couldn’t very well keep him in the dark. “I distinctly remember stating that I needed to get a drink or two in me before I was up to talking about Nate.”

Danse held up a bottle. Whiskey.

“Where’d you get that?” she asked, surprised. Had he… planned this? Had he actually wanted to talk to her?

“Found it the other day. I thought I’d save it for an evening when I actually got you talking,” he said, unscrewing the top. The paladin took a swig right from the bottle and swallowed, exhaling sharply. “It’s cheap. Fair warning.”

“Great. Well, I should probably start with Shaun while I’m still sober, huh?” she asked, scooting around the edge of the fire in order to sit beside him. When he passed it to her, she took a drink and handed it back. It burned her throat and settled like fire in her stomach. “Ugh—shit.”

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Dandy,” she coughed as she passed the bottle back to him. “Let’s see. We hooked that nasty cybernetic brain-bit up to Nick and looked through what remained of Kellogg’s memories. As it turns out, maybe ten years or so went by in-between them stealing Shaun, and me waking up.”

“You’re saying—“

“Yeah,” she laughed humorlessly, swiping the bottle away and drinking. This time it went down a little easier. “All this time, I’ve been looking for a baby when I should have been looking for a ten year old boy. The Institute has him somewhere, and nobody knows how to get into the place. The only lead we’ve got is to go into the Glowing Sea, where an escaped Institute scientist may be hiding out.”

Danse considered that for a long time, taking the bottle from her and drinking. “I’m sorry, Noel. We’ll—we’ll find the scientist, and figure out how to get into the Institute. You have my word.”

The holotape crackled quietly as the songs continued, drifting peacefully into the otherwise still night air.

“Thanks, Danse. It’s just… ten years. He’s already growing up without me. He—he won’t even know me. What if he won’t believe me when I tell him I’m his mother?” she asked, willing her voice not to break.

“Then we’ll figure something out. Find some way to prove it.” He said resolutely.

God, but she’d missed talking to him like this. Missed his unflinching, unyielding manner. Even if it was wholly improbable that things worked out to be that simple… when he said things like that, she could almost believe him. She took another drink of whiskey, swallowing and shaking her head as she handed the bottle back over to him so he could follow suit. It definitely wasn’t a smooth, expensive drink, but it was certainly doing its job all the same.

“So… let’s see… where was I about Nate?”

“Driving him crazy?” he suggested, setting the bottle down between them.

“Oh, yeah. I collected old records. All kinds of music. Mostly big band stuff. But a little bit of everything. I’d have music going the second he walked out the door in the morning til I heard his car pull in the driveway in the evening.” She explained, slouching against the wall.

“He didn’t care for music, I take it?”

Noel snorted. “Not really. He was... quiet. He liked the quiet. But I didn’t like to be alone with my thoughts. Music helped.”

The paladin nodded thoughtfully, watching her. “You don’t ever really speak of him that fondly,” he observed.

She winced. “I’m doing him a disservice,” she said, pausing to take a drink. “He wasn’t a bad man. He worked hard and put a roof over our heads. But… I just… I don’t know how to explain it. We just… we really never should have gotten married. We were teenagers when we started dating. And he went off to join the military, so we never saw each other as we both grew a little older. And it’s easy to get along well with someone and think everything is great when you only communicate with them via letters every couple of weeks. We weren’t... compatible people. And if we’d actually had the chance to spend any time around each other, we probably would have realized it, and never gotten married in the first place.”

“I see. So that’s why you’d said Shaun was the only bright spot in your life before.”

“Yeah,” she sighed wearily. “I felt obligated to act a certain way around Nate the neighbors. I hated it, but I did it because I thought that maybe if I just went through the motions, eventually I’d just kind of accept it.”

He hesitated before prompting quietly. “Do you… still feel obligated to act a certain way around people?”

“Sometimes.” She said, raising the bottle to her lips and drinking deep.

“Noel…”

“Yeah?” The sound of her name on his lips made her heart twist painfully in her chest. She offered the bottle back to him. When he took it, only to set it aside, fixing her with his dark stare, she felt anxiety prickle at her.

“I told you when you joined the Brotherhood that I asked for honesty in my people.”

Suddenly, she felt queasy. _Drank too fast, that’s all. That’s all._ “And?”

“And I don’t want you to feel like you have to act a certain way around me.”

The statement was so absurd she let out a bark of laughter. “Okay, Danse. I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.” She said, leaning heavily back against the wall to steady herself. She was definitely drunk again. The only thought she had to console her was that this time, she was too miserable to do anything stupid. Had he really just said that? He’d kissed her and then spent a week pretending that it never happened, and he wanted _her_ to be honest?

“Is something funny?”

“No, sorry,” She decided that it was probably for the best to change the subject. “So, how do we cross the Glowing Sea? Apparently the area is really badly irradiated.”

“A full suit of power armor will block most radiation. We should head back to the Prydwen and get you suited up.” He stated, turning his head to look down at her.

She groaned under her breath. “We’d need to wear helmets, huh?”

“That’s correct.”

“So I’ll be useless because I’ll be half-blind.”

He hummed thoughtfully. “We’ll just… need to outfit you with a weapon that will be more—forgiving, let’s say. Maybe a minigun.”

“A minigun?” she asked, rolling her head to the side to peer up at him blearily through the haze of alcohol. “I don’t think I could lift—“

His hand, heavy in its metal shell, settled on her shoulder. “You’ll be fine. The suit will help take the weight. And all you’ll have to do will be to aim in the general direction of whatever you want dead.”

“Okay.” Noel felt her eyes flutter shut. The fire was so warm, and the feel of the paladin beside her was so sweet. She couldn’t stay mad at him, not like this. With his hand on her shoulder like that, offering a sense of shelter, she could almost pretend that they were… As the holotape crackled along, the next song picking up, she hummed along with it. “Ah, I love this one.”

“I’m glad I found that tape, then.”

“Thanks, Danse.” She murmured. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to lean over just the barest inch and let her head fall to rest on his plated shoulder. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable pillow, but after a moment’s hesitation the paladin carefully lifted his arm in order to drape it around her, drawing her in toward his side and letting her nestle in there. A part of her wondered why he was even tolerating, much less welcoming the contact, but she didn’t want to ask and risk spoiling it.

“I’ll take the first watch. You sleep. We’ll get an early start tomorrow and head for the Prydwen.” His voice was quiet.

_“Emptiness is a place you’re in with nothing to lose, but no more to win. The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore. The moon ain’t gonna rise in the sky. The tears are always cloudin’ your eyes when you’re without love.”_

For once, she realized as she started to nod off, she didn’t want more. It was a fragile thing, this moment, and she wouldn’t have traded it away for anything. No matter what happened the next day, no matter if he pushed her away again and pretended this hadn’t happened either… at least she had this.


	11. I Really Don't Want to Know

The Glowing Sea was really a bit of a disappointment. It was neither a sea, nor was it nearly as glowy as Noel had expected it to be. On top of that… “I can’t fucking see anything.”

The paladin’s chuckle, broadcast through her helmet and directly into her ear, was a subtle sound that tickled at her senses. “You’re doing fine, Knight. I’m on the lookout. Just focus on the area in front of you. There’s quite a bit of loose rock here, and the footing is bad in certain areas.”

“Got it. Thanks, Danse.” She said, picking her way across the uneven terrain as delicately as one could in a full suit of Brotherhood-issue power armor and lugging along a minigun. Just as he’d said, the suit made the weapon manageable, but she still had her concerns about actually having to use it—mainly because everything more than three feet in front of her face was basically a big green and yellow and brown blur. Then again, she supposed as long as long as something was in front of her vision that wasn’t green and yellow and brown, she could shoot at it and be doing pretty well for herself.

“Are you humming?” he asked suddenly.

“I—was I?” she asked, suddenly grateful for the fact that her helmet was covering her face. She felt her cheeks growing hot. “Sorry. I hadn’t realized I was doing it.” She’d been listening to the holotape Danse had given to her more than any one person probably should have, and she knew it was probably driving the paladin crazy, but… He’d never so much as uttered a single word about it.

“It’s alright. I liked that song,” was all he said.

Noel’s felt that now-familiar pang of longing for the man. Sometimes he just said or did little things like that—supporting her in her eccentricities and not demanding that she defend them. And not just that sort of thing. When they’d requisitioned a vertibird for the flight to the edge of the Glowing Sea, he’d spent the flight giving her a refresher on how to handle the power armor. He’d even helped her to slip her helmet on and make sure that it was secured properly to help protect her from radiation. It was things like that that made her want him all the more. He never allowed his touches to linger, and he was the pinnacle of professionalism—a commanding officer ensuring that the knight he was sponsoring was prepared for action and learning to maintain her own gear.

But still, she couldn’t help but wonder… She’d caught him watching her on the vertibird, before they’d put their helmets on. He’d been staring at her with those deep brown eyes she loved so much until he’d realized she had noticed his gaze, and then he’d looked away abruptly. Noel had wondered what he’d been thinking about, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth in her distraction as she’d tried to think it over—and she’d caught him, out of the corner of her eye, staring again.

_Does he want to kiss me again?_ The thought had bloomed deep in her chest, leaving her aching at the thought. Their kiss in Hancock’s kitchen had been intoxicating to her. The thought that he was driven by the same distraction… She didn’t want to make assumptions, or hope for something that couldn’t happen, but…

It was tempting.

Noel sighed, rolling her shoulders as best she could. The heavy suit was growing increasingly uncomfortable because she wasn’t used to wearing it. Frankly, she didn’t understand how Danse managed keeping it on all the time.

“Noel.”

“Huh?” she asked, glancing in the paladin’s direction.

“I don’t know if you can see it, but there’s a radstorm rolling in from the west. It looks like a bad one.” Danse’s voice was terse.

When Noel turned to try to look toward the west, she didn’t see too much out of the ordinary, though she was able to discern flashes of light up in the clouds. “Our suits will protect us though, right? Those weird Atom-worshippers at the crater said that we were close to Virgil’s hideout. Maybe we can just keep pushing through it?”

“Our suits will protect us to some degree, yes, but… it won’t just be the radiation. There’ll be high speed winds and debris. We need to get to cover.”

“Okay. Where should we go?” she asked, frustrated with her inability to help find a suitable spot to hole up until the storm passed.

He paused, glancing around. “I think I see a structure. Come on.” The man took off at a jog, and Noel hurried after him. The structure turned out to be a small concrete shed, accessible only through a door that was so badly rusted stuck in that they barely managed to open it wide enough for the two to squeeze through in their armor. It was pitch black inside, until Danse turned on his suit’s lamp. The narrow beam of light swept over the space, illuminating an old lawn mower in the corner next to a couple of bags of potting soil. A few little odds and ends meant for gardening were scattered here and there, but otherwise the place was empty.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Noel chuckled quietly. “Good news for us.”

“Outstanding. The structure seems sound, as well. We can wait here for the storm to blow past and then get going again.” Danse replied, moving to try to force the door more or less closed again. He then sat down with his back to an empty section of wall, head was turned toward the door as if wary that something might try to get in, but everything was quiet.

Setting down her minigun, Noel moved to sit beside him, telling herself that it was because there just wasn’t enough room in the narrow building to go elsewhere, and not because she wanted to be near him.

Still, she was relieved that he didn’t question it. Instead, when she was situated, he just turned off the lamp on his suit, shrouding the pair in darkness. For several minutes, everything was quiet—and then the radstorm hit.

Wind howled outside, moaning in through the narrow crack in the door, and the little shed seemed to groan slightly at the strain of remaining upright. When what sounded like something metallic collided with the wall with a screeching thump, Noel drew in a sharp breath in her alarm.

“It’s alright,” he said, that deep voice soothing and gentle in her ear. “We’re safe here.”

“What if the building collapses?” the words fell from her lips, anxious and unrestrained.

“It won’t. It’s been here for years, and this isn’t the first radstorm to blow through, nor will it be the last. It hasn’t collapsed before. It won’t this time, either,” He said. His calm logic was soothing, though not as soothing as the shift as he slowly eased his arm around her waist. “We’ll be fine, Noel. Come on, load up that holotape.”

It was a kindness for her benefit, she figured, but she was grateful all the same. The pleasant, soft music and singing served to distract from the worst sounds of the storm as it raged outside. Even though she couldn’t actually feel the contact of his hand on her body through their armor, she was aware of the subtle pressure and it, too, helped to keep her from thinking about the radstorm.

With a bit of shifting, the heavy carapaces of their suits clunking together quietly, she turned to rest her weight on her right hip and settle her helmet in the crook of space between his chestplate and his paulron.

“Noel…” his voice sounded as if it hitched in his throat.

She exhaled in a sigh, closing her eyes. “Just let me stay like this, Danse. Please.”

He was silent for a long time before finally uttering in a hushed tone, “Alright.”

She didn’t dare move anymore, lest he decide it was too much. Even though her neck was quickly growing uncomfortable due to their armor making the position of her head awkward, she didn’t move an inch.

“Noel… we can’t—“ he began slowly. “We can’t keep doing this sort of thing.”

Noel kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Maybe if she just pretended she didn’t hear him…

“I know you’re awake.” Despite his previous words, his arm remained firmly where it was, looped around her.

“How did you know?” she asked quietly.

“Your breathing sounds different when you fall asleep,” he replied, his voice gentle. She wanted to hate him for that. It would have been easier if he’d been angry. But she couldn’t hate him, and all she felt was a dull ache at the next words. “Noel, this isn’t—this is not professional. The Brotherhood has very clear rules about proper conduct.”

“You think a vertibird is gonna fly down out of the sky and Maxson’s gonna walk in on us right now?” She managed to get the words out. She meant to sound sarcastic, but she knew as she spoke that she just sounded weary.

“No. But we can’t get used to this. You know that.”

“I know,” Noel said with a sigh. She jerked herself upright abruptly, shifting to scoot away. It was his fault as much as hers, she told herself. He always said that it was too far, that they were acting too familiar with one another, and—hell, just now, even then as he’d been saying they couldn’t carry on the way they were, he’d been holding her. Her tone was more acid than she intended when she spoke. “I’m sorry, _sir._ ”

His hand slowly dropped to his side. Neither of them said anything else. The music filled the silence, but even that seemed like it wasn’t enough. The quiet seemed thick and oppressive as it crept up in the cracks and the gaps between songs, despite the wind buffeting noisily at the little shed.

The storm proved to be a fairly short one despite its ferocity, the squall blowing past and leaving the world outside silent. Noel was quick to push herself to her feet and, after a moment of fumbling around in the dark for her minigun, was ready to go.

“Noel…” his voice was still quiet.

She didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to listen to whatever he had to say. She didn’t even care what it was—some bullshit justification for why he was acting the way he was? An apology that wouldn’t actually fix anything? She just as soon would’ve rather skipped it all.

“Come on. It shouldn’t be far to Virgil’s hideout.” She said, throwing her weight into the rusted door and pushing it open with the accompanying sound of a metallic shriek. It was better to be moving again, she told herself. It’d be easier to ignore her feelings that way.

“ _Noel!_ ” he shouted from behind her—but he didn’t sound angry. He sounded… afraid?

“What?” she asked, turning to peer in his direction. The paladin was priming his rifle and had lifted it. He fired at… _something_. A brown-and-green blur that she realized too late was moving toward her.

She lifted the minigun, planted her feet, and fired.

Bullets struck the earth and whizzed off into empty air and some found their mark, she heard—but it wasn’t stopping.

All at once, the deathclaw seemed to materialize out of the muddy colours, coming into focus as it charged.

_Oh,_ the syllable was the only vague thing that shot through her head before the deathclaw slammed into her, knocking her clean off her feet. Pain burned through her side, in the soft spot where her armored plates didn’t quite cover.

Danse was shouting and firing his rifle. Noel managed to get her minigun in between herself and the huge beast as it pinned her down to the ground, claws trying to rip through her armor. Even without her glasses, this close she could see the deathclaw’s teeth with far too much detail. Someone was screaming in terror and pain— and she realized with a kind of detached observation that it was _her_. The funny part was that the holotape was still playing, her brain supplied unhelpfully. She struggled against the monster, though it turned away as Danse’s shots rained down on it.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world to stay down, blinded by the pain that lanced up and down her left side. _Don’t let it hurt Danse_ , the thought cobbled itself together in her head, and with a moan of pain Noel forced herself upright.

_“How many arms have held you and hated to let you go? How many, how many, I wonder… But I really don’t want to know.”_ The music sounded nice, too peaceful for the waking nightmare she’d found herself in.

_Shock, you’re in shock_ , part of her brain insisted, and more loudly, _It hurts it hurts it hurts—_

_Protect Danse._

She wasn’t sure how she managed to get the gun up. With the deathclaw still as close as it was, she could make it out. She held the trigger and prayed. 

Bullets sprayed into its back like hail, and the beast whirled on her again, then on Danse, who was still firing—It took another two steps toward the paladin— 

–and fell, slumping in the dirt as he shot the thing in the head one final time. 

She realized she was still holding the trigger, but the drum was empty. The gun whizzed uselessly. It took all her concentration to lift her finger off it. 

“Noel! Noel, can you hear me?” Danse was running to her, was collapsing onto his knees beside her. She was grateful she couldn’t see his face. She didn’t want to know how bad it was. Her whole side was hot, and when she placed her hand against it, the power armor’s gauntlet came away red. 

“Noel!” he shouted again, grabbing at his gear for a Stimpack. She barely even felt the sting of the needle as he jammed it into the curve of flesh between her neck and her shoulder, between the gaps of her armor— _he said you hold all your tension there_ — “Come on, stay with me.” 

“I’m okay– I’m okay, I’m okay–” she choked the words out, though her voice was so high, bubbling with a half-suppressed sob of pain that she hardly recognized it as belonging to her. 

She only faintly felt the prick of another needle at her side, near the horrible pain. 

_“So always make me wonder. Always make me guess. And even if I ask you darling, don’t confess.”_ The holotape crackled softly. 

Her eyelids felt so heavy. The pain was too much. Maybe if she could just rest her eyes for a moment… Noel was only vaguely aware of the fresh pain that radiated through her side as the paladin was moving her. 

_“Just let it remain your secret. But darlin’, I love you so. No wonder, no wonder I wonder… Though I really don’t want to know…”_


	12. I Guess I'll Have to Dream the Rest

“-ing to be alright?”

“I don’t know. If you’d gotten her here any later, I don’t think I could have saved her. I still may not be able to.”

“What are you saying?” That voice… through the haze of pain, she recognized that voice. _Danse._

“She’s lost a lot of blood. I’m doing my best but—“ She didn’t know the other voice. Another man though, certainly.

_Danse._ Everything hurt so bad. What was happening? Where was she? There was a bright light shining down into her eyes, making it hard to see. Her side burned and burned but everywhere else she felt cold. There was a taste at the back of her tongue, saline and metallic. When she opened her lips to speak, the only sound she seemed to be able to form was a moan of pain.

“She’s waking up! Damn it, I told you that she needed a bigger dose,” Danse’s voice sounded furious.

“Hold on, hold on… I know you did, but she’s so small. I didn’t want to give her too much or it might have killed her. There.”

Killed her? It took all her concentration to remember what had been happening. The Glowing Sea… The faint recollection of the deathclaw shuddered its way through her mind. That’s right, the deathclaw had struck her, and Danse…

The paladin’s face swam into view through the haze of light and pain and chems. His face was streaked drying blood, she realized, and he wasn’t in his armor. “Hold on, Noel. Don’t move,” he said, a hand moving from her forehead down her cheek, cupping her jaw.

She tried to tell him to put his armor back on because of the radiation, but she couldn’t seem to make her mouth work. It was getting harder and harder to focus.

“That’s better. I’ll try to catch her before she wakes up again, if she…”

She was drowning, drowning in a muffled world of bright haze and pain and fog. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t even keep her eyes open anymore… was this what dying felt like?

Noel surrendered to the fog.

She didn’t know how long she drifted in the haze, feverish and confused—a parade of specters floating lazily in and out of her vision as if to check on her progress. Mr. and Mrs. Whitfield hovered anxiously at the edge of her sight, murmuring to one another and watching her. Kellogg drifted by, sneering down at her as if amused that this would be what killed her. Nate sat beside her for a time, quiet and smiling in that way of his.

The only thing that seemed to keep her anchored to her body was the feel of a warm, calloused hand clutching one of her own in a grip so fierce that it could only have been Danse. He held onto her like a falcon, so hard it hurt—but the pain was good. As long as she hurt, she was still alive.

She dreamed.

She dreamed of a little house, built board by board, over an empty plot in Sanctuary. She dreamed of Christmas snow, of all of her friends crammed together on couches and swapping presents, of playing fetch with Dogmeat.

The Whitfields left the room… really, more a cave than anything else, she realized, made habitable by the addition of furniture and… monitors? Scientific equipment?

She dreamed of planting a garden behind the house, filling it with red flowers and helping the world turn green again, even if it was only in that tiny spot.

Kellogg sighed, rolling his eyes at her, and tossed a half-hearted wave to her as he strode away.

She dreamed of sitting on a balcony and watching the stars come out with Danse. She dreamed of the two of them drifting inside and falling into bed together, their fingers entwined as if in prayer while they kissed and reveled in each other…

She glanced toward the chair Nate had been sitting in, and saw that it was empty. With supreme effort, she rolled her gaze to the opposite side of the bed. Danse was there in the other chair, his head bowed toward his chest as he snored quietly. The world seemed to come back slowly, bit by bit, like a puzzle being assembled. The smell of antiseptic and old, musty air. Pain, a deep, dull ache in her side, but no longer the terrible burning sensation from before.

“Danse,” she made herself speak, her voice coming out as a croak.

He was awake in an instant, his eyes wide, dark circles of sleeplessness beneath them. The more coherent, logical part of her brain felt bad for waking him. The rest of her was just glad to see his eyes again. “Noel!” he gasped, clutching her hand as he rose. “She’s awake!” he called over his shoulder.

“She is? Good. Be right there.” The man’s voice from earlier replied.

“Look at you,” she whispered with cracked, dry lips, gazing at the exhausted-looking paladin. “You’re a mess.”

It was the same thing that he’d said to her outside Goodneighbor. The man just shook his head, not saying anything as he held her hand in both of his.

Suddenly, another face appeared above her—a green face, a super mutant—wearing a pair of eyeglasses. “Ah, good,” the mutant said. “Welcome back to the world of the living. How are you feeling?”

“Thirsty.” She managed to get the word out.

“Excellent. That’s a good sign.” A cup was pressed to her lips, her head lifted up off the bed high enough that she could drink. The water stung at her lips and it was lukewarm, but it was the best thing she’d ever tasted.

“Where—who…?” she couldn’t seem to get her thoughts in order.

Luckily, the mutant understood. “This is my home, such that it is. I’m Virgil. The paladin told me why you were looking for me.”

Noel tried to sit up, though the pain in her side made her dizzy and she quickly slumped back down. “Son of a bitch,” she groaned. “Okay… okay. Virgil. You’re… taller than I’d expected.”

The mutant let out a humorless chuckle at that. “And here I was worried your friend would be as rude as you, paladin. She’s downright charming for someone who’s lucky to be alive.”

Danse made a belligerent noise in in the back of his throat, but he just kept clutching at her hand, staring at her as if reassuring himself that she was alive.

“Sorry,” Noel apologized for him, letting out a slow breath. “Thank you for fixing me up.”

“Well, I’m really more of a scientist than a medical doctor,” Virgil replied. “There will probably be some, ah… scarring.”

“I can live with scars. The important thing is that I can live at all. So—you know why we’re here.”

He nodded, adjusting his glasses. “Yes. You want to get into the Institute. I will tell you what I can, but I need a favour from you in return.”

“Well, technically I owe you a favour for saving my life. So, shoot.” She made herself sit up despite the pain and the dizziness, breathing hard and squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to will the cave to stop spinning.

“I wasn’t always like this,” he said, gesturing to himself. “I was a human. I want to be human again. In the Institute, there is a serum that should reverse the effects of this mutation. I want you to bring it to me, if you’re able to find your way in.”

“Done. I won’t leave the place til I’ve found it.”

Virgil sighed in relief. “I was worried you’d take more convincing. In that case, you’ll need the plans I’ve drawn up. I want to start by saying that they may not be complete. I wasn’t part of that department. But you’ll need to rig this up somewhere—it’s a sort of teleporter—and use it to get into the Institute. You’ll also need a Courser.”

“A Courser?”

“An Institute Synth. One that could pass for a human in a crowd, but never in a conversation. They’re the Institute’s hunters. They track down Synths who have escaped the Institute and bring them back—and they’re incredibly dangerous. Deadly. I’ve never heard of one being destroyed before, but you’ll have to do just that. I’ve outlined the how and the why in my notes that you can take with you, but…”

“But what?” Danse finally spoke up, dragging his tired gaze away from Noel long enough to fix Virgil with a dark stare.

“Well, as dangerous as Coursers are… it would be best to wait til you’re both fully rested and recovered. If you went after one in your condition now, you’d both be dead in under a minute.”

“I thought that was a given,” Noel admitted with a weak laugh, one that made her gasp in pain and clutch at her side with her free hand. “Oh, _ass_ —that hurts…”

“You need time to rest,” Virgil stated again, “but you can’t stay here, I’m afraid. This place is shielded from the worst of the radiation, but it’s still a factor and you won’t get better if you’re suffering from radiation sickness.”

“She can’t make another trip across the Glowing Sea like this. Besides, her suit’s torn up.” Danse protested angrily.

She gave his hand a squeeze, trying to soothe him. “Can we call for an evac?”

“An evac… what, with a vertibird? I don’t know if it could make it through the rad clouds.” The paladin replied doubtfully.

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t, as long as you had a good pilot who knew what they were going. The clouds are low-hanging. If they stay above the cloudline until they get to you, then descend and leave in the same manner, they should be just fine.” Virgil said, pulling off his glasses and cleaning them on the edge of his shirt.

Danse seemed to consider it for a moment, then finally nodded. “Alright. I’ll go make the request and get our beacon activated.” Rising, he released his grip on Noel’s hand and strode away. She heard the familiar hiss as he opened up his suit of power armor. Her hand felt suddenly cold without him.

“You should make sure he rests, too,” Virgil said quietly, drawing her from her thoughts. “He told me about the attack, and where it was. He must have run like hell to get you here in time. And he’s barely slept since then.”

“I’ll make sure he rests. Thank you, Virgil. For everything.”

“Of course. You’ll remember the serum…?”

“You have my word. I know that may not mean much, since you obviously don’t know me, but I swear I’ll find it for you.”

“I trust you,” the scientist replied. “The paladin talked about you, a little. When it looked like you might not make it. He didn’t say much, but the impression he gave me was a good one.“

Noel felt her lips turn upward at that. The sound of Danse’s footfalls approaching called attention to his return. He’d left his suit out in the tunnel again, she realized. Then again, the cave was pretty narrow to be tromping around in power armor.

“There was already a vertibird nearby. It’ll be here soon. Come on, we need to get you back in your suit.”

Noel nodded and, grunting with the effort, swung her legs out from under the covers and planted her feet on the floor. She suddenly realized how cold she was, and glanced down. “I think we need to get me back in my pants, first. And my shirt. –This is really embarrassing.” She said bleakly, snatching the blanket up in an attempt to cover herself. Her undergarments were still on, and she was grateful for that, but even so…

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t have treated your injuries otherwise…” Virgil muttered sheepishly. “I’m afraid your shirt and your jacket are rather beyond repair, but they should serve until you can get a change of clothing.” He bustled away and returned with her clothing, which was folded as neatly as she supposed it could have been, given that her once-white tee was shredded to ribbons along one side and strained rusty red-brown. The leather jacket that she loved so much was similarly destroyed. Even her jeans were badly stained down one side.

“Damn. I must have looked pretty gross when I got here.” She said with a faint laugh. Sitting up was making her dizzy, and she was afraid what standing might do. _Lost a lot of blood_ , she reminded herself. _It’s to be expected._

Virgil set the bundle of clothing down on the bed beside her and turned modestly away in order to busy himself with something out of her sight.

She picked up her jeans first, but her legs felt like jelly and trying to lift them was a feeble exercise, and she couldn’t bend forward far enough to slip her legs into them. Maybe try the shirt first. She was already puffing with exertion by the time she righted herself and dropped the jeans in favor of the shirt, and when she tried to lift her arms up stars seemed to blink at the corners of her vision. She couldn’t do it.

_Too weak to even dress yourself._

She looked toward Danse and didn’t even have to shame herself by opening her mouth to ask for help. The paladin stepped forward, taking the shirt from her grasp and slowly helping to ease her arms upward. She found herself marveling at how someone so strong could also be so gentle. He slipped the garment onto her body, his fingers ghosting at her uninjured side as he smoothed the material down. He got her socks on quickly, and then positioned her jeans below her.

“Just step down into them and I’ll pull them up,” he said quietly, not quite looking at her.

Noel nodded, too weak and weary to share in his embarrassment. Slowly, she eased off the bed, standing upright—and nearly toppled over as all the blood seemed to rush out of her head and into her legs, which felt like clumsy lead weights.

Fortunately, Danse was there and he rose as she started to lose her balance, steadying her, one hand gripping at her hip while the other tugged her jeans up and into place.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to him, leaning into his frame as she closed her eyes and waited for the urge to be sick to pass. _Don't throw up on Danse. Don't throw up. Do not._

“Don’t apologize, Noel.” his breath was hot against her ear as his fingers moved to her front, below her navel in order to zip and button her jeans. Getting her boots on was easier-- and a much-needed relief-- because she was able to sit on the edge of the bed and try to blink away the spots at the edges of her sight. Finally, he helped ease her jacket on and zipped it up.

“Oh, shit… I feel like I could sleep for a week,” She sighed, accepting the paladin’s help in getting back to her feet. She looped an arm across his shoulders, leaning into him for balance. “When’d my legs decide to go on strike?”

“You’ll need plenty of rest before you go after the Courser, remember,” Virgil said, offering her a notebook. “Here. This should have the information you’ll need, more or less. You’ll want someone with some technical know-how to look it over, though.”

“Thanks, Virgil. For everything,” she said, managing a smile as she took the notebook.

Danse hesitated, trying to choose his words carefully. Finally, haltingly, he spoke. “It was a… good thing you did. I—have to apologize, for my initial mistrust. I see now that it was… misplaced.”

“Be careful,” was all the scientist said, watching them as they turned and made their way toward the exit.

Noel’s suit of power armor was badly battered, deep gashes in the metal plates and the unarmored bit in the side where the beast had torn into her was a mangled mess. She could hear the heavy thrum of the approaching vertibird, and relief flooded through her. Danse helped her carefully into the battered suit and got her helmet on, then guided her to rest against the wall while he climbed into his own suit.

Together, with him supporting her, they left the cave to watch the vertibird make its descent. Clambering into the vehicle was almost beyond her ability, but with Danse’s help she finally got aboard and was able to slump in place, breathing heavily.

“Welcome aboard, paladin, knight!” the pilot, who sounded downright exhilarated, called. “Heard you got torn up, knight! We ready for dustoff?”

“Ready.” Danse said, making sure Noel was steady as the vertibird hummed and lifted gently into the air.

“Hold onto something. There’s gonna be some chop as we rise through the clouds, but from there it’ll be a smooth ride. Am I heading back to the Prydwen?”

“No,” the paladin said, surprising Noel. “Take us to Sanctuary.”


	13. Make the World go Away

It was dusk when the vertibird touched down just outside Sanctuary, and Noel didn’t climb out so much as fall. Fortunately, Danse seemed to be a step ahead of her and kept her from faceplanting. She’d never felt so damnably _weak_ before—like she had no control over her arms or legs, like she was going to pass out if she didn’t focus solely on keeping her eyes open. The paladin steadied her and removed her helmet.

“You’re as white as a sheet,” he muttered.

“I’d like to lie and say I’m fine, but I doubt you’d believe it.” She managed to get the words out with a thin smile, her voice fainter than she had realized it would be.

The appearance of the vertibird and the two had started to draw a little crowd—the Longs and Mama Murphy, Piper with her hands stained with fresh ink from the press Noel had painstakingly brought to the little settlement so she could call it home, Preston with his hat slightly askew.

“General! Danse, is she alright?” Preston called.

The pilot gave a little wave and got ready for dustoff as Danse half supported, half hauled Noel toward the group.

“Ah, hell… Blue, you look awful. What happened?” Piper asked.

“Well, y’know…” she began, trying to think of something clever to say, but it was no good. She couldn’t get her brain to work.

“She’ll be fine, but she needs rest. We can talk about it later.” Danse practically snarled the words out, causing Jun to shrink back. The others stared at him in uncomfortable silence, before Preston finally cleared his throat.

“Right. Let’s just get her inside. Talk can wait until the morning.” He said, not unkindly, and shooed the others gently away.

“Do you need a hand?” Piper asked, wiggling her ink-stained fingers. “I’ve got two.”

“If you can help me get her out of the suit, I’d be grateful.” Danse replied.

Noel felt rather like someone observing a play from the outside. She was aware of what was happening as she heard the hiss of her armor opening up, and Danse’s strong hands and Piper’s gentler ones helping her step out of the suit. But she just felt like she was at a loss to actually do anything. The best she could manage was hopefully not being any more difficult or slow-moving than she had to be. “Thanks,” she mumbled as Piper set her glasses on her nose for her, and the world came into focus.

“No problem, Blue.” The dark-haired woman ruffled her hair like she was a kid.

“You want some help getting her inside?” Preston asked.

Danse shook his head and scooped her up, as gently as he could have given that he was in a suit. “Where can I take her?”

“Nobody’s started living in her old house. Seems as good a place as any.”

_Not there,_ she wanted to protest, but she couldn’t find the words. How could she express that that house was Nate’s place, not hers? Never hers. And how could she tell them about the smiling, gentle specter who had waited at her bedside to see if she would die, without sounding like she was crazy? Maybe she _was_ crazy. Maybe it had just been a hallucination because of the chems Virgil had given her to keep her knocked out.

It didn’t matter much. She was too weak and too tired to protest. All she could do was cling to consciousness as she tried not to let the familiar thunking of Danse’s footsteps, or the comforting motion of being subtly rocked as he walked, lull her into sleep.

He opened the red door of the old house and stepped inside, having to duck a bit. The little house had never been made for someone in power armor. Someone had been kind enough to sweep the excess debris and dead leaves out and remove the furniture too badly broken to be of any use, she realized, but otherwise it was untouched.

“Where’s the bedroom?” he asked softly.

“Down the hall. Last door on the left.” She mumbled.

The paladin had to turn sideways, shouldering his way down the narrow hall, in order to reach the bedroom. Someone had replaced the old, broken bed with a simple frame and a mattress, and covered it with a sheet. There were a pair of lumpy pillow there as well, and a much-patched quilt. He helped her out of her jacket and her boots. Then, Danse eased her gently down onto the bed and removed his helmet, exhaling in a sigh. “Rest now.”

“Danse—“ she whispered, her hand seeking his own before he could pull away. Her fingers caught at metal digits and she made herself hang on.

“I’m just going down the hall. I’ll sleep on the couch.” His voice was quiet.

She felt like she was on the edge of that cliff again, and the ground under her feet was crumbling away. It was strange how often she felt like that around him. This time, though, she decided to just jump, rather than letting herself fall. “Stay with me,” she made herself say as she looked up into those dark eyes, wide as they were with uncertainty. “Please.”

Honestly, she didn’t think he would. She expected him to make an excuse about professionalism or propriety and flee. When she heard his suit hiss and realized that it was opening up and he was climbing out, though, she felt a surge of relief.

He moved so much more quietly without his suit, she realized as she watched him circle the bed to move to the other side and sit at the edge. Noel studied the hard contours and musculature of his back, the subtle lines and angles that the thin material of his flight suit couldn’t hide. He took of his boots methodically, slowly, as if trying to buy himself time. Then, finally, he shifted to ease down onto the mattress beside her. The paladin remained on his back, ramrod-straight and looking about as relaxed as a coiled up spring.

“This mattress is terrible.” He said bluntly, his voice filling the quiet room.

Noel rolled onto her uninjured side to face him, giving her aching ribs and stomach some relief and also enabling her to shift to press closer to him. Before he could pull away, she planted her head on his chest, just over his heart. She then realized why he’d spoken so loudly.

His heart was pounding.

Draping her arm over his stomach to curl her fingers possessively against his side, Noel whispered as if she hadn’t noticed his tension or his rapid heartbeat, “I don’t like this house.” 

He seemed to be grateful for the distraction, seizing on the topic. “Still? Too many memories?”

“Mm. Bad ones. It was nice of the people to clean it out, but… I don’t think I’d ever want to stay here.” It was easier to think now that she wasn’t using all her energy to remain upright. Drowsiness settled over her as Danse fumbled for a moment with the quilt, using it to cover them. She was so warm, so pleasantly warm curled up beside him, her body fitted against his side like she belonged there.

“Where would you want to stay, then?” Bit by bit, he was starting to relax. He was tired too, after all. She could only hope that under his nerves he was feeling the same sort of contentment as she.

“I want to build a new house. There are lots of empty spaces. Maybe in the cul-de-sac.”

“The what?”

“Where the street goes in that little loop around the big tree,” she murmured, tracing a circle against his side with her index finger. He shivered. “That’s a cul-de-sac.”

“I see. And what’s possessed you to make you want to build a house all of a sudden?”

“Well, we’ve got all of the supplies that I keep dragging back here, and the construction materials for it…”

“They were all here before. What I mean is, why now? It seems like a sudden interest.” He said quietly. Slowly, she felt an uncertain arm edge around her, his palm coming to rest at the small of her back. He was careful not to touch her where the deathclaw had torn her open, and the feel of his hand was so comforting…

“I had a dream about it.” She finally admitted in a whisper.

“I’m sure the people here would be happy to help. You’ve already done a lot for them. And it’s not like we have anything else we can do, since you need to recover.”

“Ah yes, it’s all my fault.” She teased him quietly.

“I’ve noticed that while you don’t get yourself into trouble that often, it seems like when you do so, it’s huge trouble.” With his free hand, he carefully removed her glasses and set them aside on the nightstand.

“Go big or go home, right?”

He sighed in mild exasperation. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Keep me, preferably. I mean, you’ve already fed me. I’m like a stray cat. Now you’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

The paladin sighed, causing her to tip her head back in order to look up at him. He was watching her with a look she couldn’t interpret in the darkness of the bedroom, his expression twisted in a look that seemed somehow wistful and somehow bitter. “Noel…”

“Talk to me. Please.” She whispered.

“We are talking.” God, but the man was so infuriatingly stubborn sometimes.

“Danse…”

The man lifted his hand in order to rub at his brow before returning it to its place at the curve of her spine. “I just—what you said. About not being able to get rid of you. It made me realize that… that you almost didn’t make it. And if you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.” He muttered, distinctly uncomfortable.

“Danse… I-I’m sorry.” She murmured, unsure of how to respond to that, though she suddenly felt more alert, her heart twisting in her chest.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “Hell, I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty. Only you would apologize for something like that. No, I—I told you about Cutler. About how we joined the Brotherhood together.”

“Yes, of course.” She replied softly.

Danse was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts and staring up at the ceiling, before he continued. “After our first year of service or so, he and his squad went missing while they were on a mission. I got permission to head the search for him. I looked for three weeks. We tracked them to a super mutant hive, and…”

She bit at her bottom lip. “They were all…?”

The paladin shook his head. In a clinical, detached tone, he made himself continue. “They were all dead when we found them, except for Cutler. Death would have been more merciful. They’d— exposed him to the Forced Evolutionary Virus. They turned him into one of them. A mutant. I… he asked me to kill him.”

He didn’t even have to say anymore. She knew he’d done his duty. Danse was always dutiful.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Danse.” She whispered, her palm pressed flat to his side as she held him.

He let out a slow, shuddering sigh, but when he spoke his voice was steady. “Everything was much easier before. Everything seemed clear cut. Black and white. But… it seems like everything around you is complicated. I hate ghouls. But those two kids were innocent. I want to gun down every mutant I see. But Virgil saved your life. He didn’t have to do that. All he would have had to do was refuse to help, and I would have killed him and then watched as you bled out in that cave.”

“Danse…” She ached, from her head down to the tips of her toes—physically, mentally, emotionally. “Danse, things in life are hardly ever simple…”

“They were before,” he protested, glancing down at her. In the dark, she could only barely make out the contours of his face, but she felt the weight of that look all the same. “Things _were_ simple. And then you showed up at the police station and everything got complicated. It was like—like complication followed you wherever you went. Nothing could be simple if you were involved.”

“Danse—“ she began, but his free hand moved, pressing his fingers to her lips to silence her. The pads of his fingers were rough, calloused, but so warm…

He continued, quiet and earnest. “I thought that I wanted things to go back to being simple and clear cut. I did. But then you almost died, and—if that’s the price that I’d have to pay for having things be easy and plain, then I... I don’t want it. I want my life to be as complicated as hell. You’re—you’re a hell of a soldier, Noel,” he said abruptly, as if afraid of where he’d been going. “It would be a shame… I would hate to see anything happen to you.”

She wanted to kiss him, the need for the gentle intimacy of the contact overwhelming her. She made herself keep still. “I—Danse… I’m not… I’m not going anywhere. I swear.” she whispered.

“How can you sound so confident after what happened?” He sounded drained, exhausted, his fingertips drifting away from her lips to fall back to the bed beside him.

Quickly, she caught his hand with her own, lacing their fingers together. “Because. When I was in that cave and I thought... I thought I was dying, I thought I _would_ die— but I could feel you holding my hand like this. And it felt like… like as long as you held onto me, I couldn’t have gone anywhere even if I had wanted to.”

In the dark, she couldn’t see him. He was quiet for a long time, but she heard him let out a shuddering breath, then draw in another. His voice was thick when he finally spoke. “Why don’t you go to sleep, Noel?”

“Because I’m afraid that the second I doze off, you’ll be out of this bed and making a tactical retreat to the couch.” She whispered.

The paladin hesitated before finally whispering in response. “I’m not going anywhere.” He sounded as surprised by the thought as she felt.


	14. Wonderful! Wonderful!

Two very different projects had the little settlement bustling the very next day. Sturges spent most of the morning puzzling over Virgil’s notebook before pronouncing the schematics workable and marking off the dimensions that he’d need for space in chalk, using one of the now-empty plots for his work zone.

At a similarly-blank space, construction began on building a house for Noel—a real house of her own, a home. As Danse had suspected the other people of Sanctuary, from old Mama Murphy, stoop-backed and frail, to Marcy Long, usually snappish of speech, were eager to help. Noel hated her own inability to do much to help, initially. She could only stand for a short time, and the ache of her slowly healing body kept her from being able to do much in the way of hard labor. She felt pronounced guilt about it until everyone finally got together and told her to sit down and stop worrying about it. Codsworth was given the task of watching her and making sure she was being good and not overworking because he had the ability to talk at such a fast pace, in such a piteous tone, that she had no choice but to do as he said.

So there she sat, doing what she could by sorting out nails and screws, or separating good parts from junk, or calling different people over to sit and keep her company as an excuse when they started to look tired. She told the story about what had happened in the Glowing Sea at least a half-dozen times within the first three days of work.

And then Hancock and Nick had rolled in, to Noel’s surprise and delight. Hancock had had the balls to lift up her shirt just enough to gape at her scars—which were so long and vicious-looking that one look had made Piper queasy—before she smacked the ghoul on the head, howling about her decency. He’d planted a kiss on her cheek before shambling off to poke around and see how he could help with the construction. Nick had just drawn her into an embrace and held her for a long time before finally muttering that he’d been worried about her. Then, of course, she’d had to tell the story two _more_ times.

They’d all fussed over her and insisted she take it easy and forced her to have second helpings of dinner to help her get her strength back, and as the days stretched out she came to really understand what it meant to have a family. It wasn’t a mother and a father who barely spoke to each other and a baby. It was this. This whole rambling, sprawling family where hardly anyone was actually related but everyone looked out for each other. _Family_ was everyone cramming themselves around a couple of tables and sharing dinner while Piper talked about the latest story she was thinking about writing. _Family_ was having to pull Hancock aside and gently ask him to keep his chem addiction out of Mama Murphy’s sight, the ghoul nodding sheepishly and apologizing, and no longer indulging when she was around. _Family_ was Preston’s laughter, and the smell of Nick’s cigarettes, and the feel of Dogmeat laying on her feet so she’d feel guilty about displacing him by getting up, and the way Sturges cursed and hollered when he accidentally hammered his thumb instead of the nail he’d been trying to hit.

And Danse. Danse most of all.

_Family_ was the way Danse looked at her when his brow was beaded with sweat from working on putting the walls of her house up as he took a break and gulped down some water. _Family_ was the way that he guided her to her feet and how he lingered close to her if she needed support getting around. And _family_ was listening to the slow, even sound of his breathing as he slept, her arm slung over his body and her head resting on his chest.

After their first night back in Sanctuary together, the tension between them had seemed to shift somehow. He hadn’t kissed her again, and she hadn't tried to initiate another, and neither ever mentioned it. But he had stopped fussing quite so loudly, or as often, about protocol. He certainly made the disgruntled noises about professionalism now and then, but they seemed half-hearted somehow, and when it came down to it he never actually seemed interested in following through on his grousing. She didn’t even have to beg him to stay with her anymore, she’d realized the previous night, when the paladin had slid into bed beside her. He balked initially at the contact every night, hesitant to reciprocate, but as their breathing evened out he seemed to slowly relax, and would allow himself to drape his arm around her. It went no further than that. But the intimacy of the contact and the emotional fulfillment Noel felt was so intense that she didn’t even mind.

Her want for him hadn’t been diminished by any means. She was, and always would be, a person with active sexual desires, and she couldn't help but gawk (though always surreptitiously) at the sight of him when the muscles in his powerful arms would tense as he swung a hammer at a nail, or when he'd pull up the hem of his shirt to mop at his brow, exposing the hard musculature of his abdomen. But for whatever they were, comrades-in-arms or friends or something else entirely, she would wait happily. He was too precious to her to risk ruining it all by forcing her feelings on him.

So they fell asleep together and woke up together, and every day she felt a little of her strength come back until she was up on the ladders with the best of them, putting the roof on the house while he anxiously hovered on the ground beneath her, ready to catch her if she lost her balance or got dizzy and fell.

Fall had given way to winter. The house was finally finished and the furniture had been moved in. The first floor was open and spacious, with half the space dominated by chairs and couches and a coffee table and an ancient record player that Nick had discovered in working order for her—a housewarming gift, he’d said, and she’d laughed and wept and kissed the synth on the cheek. The other half of the first floor was a kitchen, similarly crammed with tables and chairs enough that the entire settlement could all stop in for dinner at the same time and they’d all have a space (though it would have been a bit snug).

The second floor was much smaller and more intimate—her bedroom and a bathroom, complete with working plumbing. The pipes rattled something fierce against the wall when the water was turned on, but it worked beautifully all the same. The bedroom contained a queen-sized bed and a desk where she could store some of the documents she’d collected, along with a pair of little file cabinets and several dressers in which she could finally store all of the clothing she’d been hoarding. A door led off to the balcony, which was furnished simply—just a patio table with a rather patched umbrella and a pair of chairs.

It was perfect, her little house, and she was been so overwhelmed at the sight of it, looking just like she’d imagined it in her dreams, that for a long time she wasn’t able to speak at all and could only stand still with her fingers pressed to her lips while she tried not to bawl.

“C’mon, Blue! Don’t cry.” Piper said, throwing her arm around Noel’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” she managed to get the words out, blinking back her tears. “It’s—it’s just perfect. I’ll never be able to repay you all.” She said, turning to glance around at the faces of her friends, her family.

“Don’t start that shit,” Hancock scoffed. “The second anything goes wrong for any of the people here, I think it’s a safe bet that you’re always the one we go running to for help.”

Preston smiled at her. “That’s right. And you drop everything you’re doing to go help. So relax.”

“Okay, okay,” she agreed. It was no good to try to argue with them. “So, would you all like to have some dinner?”

“’Fraid I can’t stay. I need to get back to Goodneighbor and make sure my city hasn’t burned down while I was gone.” The ghoul rubbed at his neck.

Nick nodded. “And I really ought to get back to Diamond City for now. It’s… certainly tempting to move here, but that’d mean moving my whole agency.”

“If I can move my business, you can too,” Piper pointed out with a broad smile. “Come on.”

“We’ll see.” He mumbled, though it was in a tone that suggested that he was genuinely interested by the idea.

“Okay… well, everyone else?” she asked hopefully.

“I’m honestly a little tired, kid. Not getting any younger, y’know.” Mama Murphy said.

The Longs muttered excuses of their own.

She felt the pleasant bubble in her chest pop. “Oh. Okay. Well… tomorrow, maybe?”

“Definitely tomorrow.” Preston said.

“Nat sent a letter that she had the rest of our stuff packed up, so I need to go get her. We should be back in time for dinner tomorrow though, okay Blue?”

Noel made herself smile. “Yeah, that sounds great. It’ll be nice to have Nat here.”

And just like that, everyone turned and left. Well, everyone but Danse, of course. At least he wasn’t going anywhere. That thought comforted her. “Shall we?” she asked, gesturing toward the door and heading inside. Danse followed her in, then shut and locked the door.

And then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into an embrace, holding her against himself. The unexpected contact made her draw in a startled breath, and she eagerly slipped her own arms about his waist. “What’s the matter?” he asked, lofting a scarred brow.

_Nothing now,_ she might have said, reveling in the feel of Danse’s strong arms draped around her. But she shook the thought away and fumbled with the words for a moment. “Nothing… I just—everyone left in such a hurry.”

Danse sighed, shaking his head as he glanced down at her, wearing a wry little half-smile that made her heart ache. “I think they did that because they wanted us to be alone.”

Noel felt her ears start to burn. “What?”

“Well, they’re all talking about… er, it.” He said, looking rather embarrassed himself, glancing away from her.

“B-but we aren’t even—we’re just sleeping!” she sputtered. Not that she would have minded doing more, of course…

He released her and stepped away, pushing his hand through his hair. Gritting his teeth, he spoke. “Well, people talk. We should—we should stop, though.”

She was used to this conversation. Sighing, Noel made her way over to one of the couches and fell forward into it, tipping over one of the arms in order to sprawl along the cushions. “If that’s what you want, Danse.”

She heard his footsteps as he approached and turned her head to peer up at him as his disapproving scowl appeared above the back of the couch, his hands, resting lightly on the surface. “I’m serious, Noel.”

“So am I,” she replied. “Can I be honest with you, Danse?”

“You know I’d prefer it, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me something you think I don’t want to hear.” He said, his frown deepening.

Noel rolled onto her back in order to look up at him properly. “I think you worry too much about what everyone else thinks, and not enough about what _you_ think. I just—I just wish you would do what you want, not what you think someone else wants.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?” she asked, lofting her brows.

“Because what I want—“ he stopped abruptly, shaking his head before continuing. “Well, what do _you_ want?”

“That’s not the question here, or what’s important.” She mumbled defensively. Suddenly his stare was too much. She was too vulnerable like this. Quickly, she got to her feet and started to edge around the couch and brush past him toward the kitchen.

Danse caught hold of her hand and pulled her back toward him, drawing her in until he’d pinned her against his body, his mouth angled over hers in a hot kiss.

The suddenness of it nearly made Noel’s knees buckle, and she let out a gasp of surprise against his lips, even as she instinctively tipped her head back, offering her lips up to him as she met the rhythm of his kiss. Her hands fell to rest at the narrow, subtle taper of his waist, her eyes lidding.

God, but it was good, so good… His mouth was so hot it seemed as if it could have scorched her, but his hands trembled as he gripped at her tightly. Finally, he pulled back, leaving both of them to catch their breath. His dark eyes burned into hers, desire and hesitation tangled together inextricably in his gaze. “That,” he said between breaths, his voice ragged, “is what I want.”

Noel felt a heady thrill rush through her. “I think it’s obvious I wanted that too.” She whispered.

“But what if Maxson finds out—“

“Danse, he isn’t going to find out. I mean, I’m certainly not planning on telling him. So unless you were going to stroll onto the Prydwen and be all ‘Damn, Maxson, that Noel is a _freak,_ ’ I can’t see how he’ll find out.” She said, lofting her brows at him.

He laughed at that, actually laughed, a slow, deep chuckle that she felt reverberate through her body, pressed against his chest as she was. “No. I wasn’t planning on telling him.”

“So… who cares? It’s not anybody else’s business. I want you, Danse. I have for a long time now.” She said quickly, before she could lose her nerve.

“Noel…” his voice was low, just above a whisper. He seemed to be about to say something else, then gave up on the endeavor in order to kiss her again, with such intensity that she felt dizzy. Every touch of his lips to her own seemed to send liquid fire burning through her veins, and she heard herself sigh in bliss as his tongue flicked against her bottom lip. Gathering her up into his arms, he scooped her easily up and carried her up the steps and to her—no, their—bed.

They fell onto the bed together, and Noel quickly tangled her fingers in his hair. His own hands ghosted along her sides, the feel of contact against her still-healing scars making her hiss. “Sorry,” he whispered against her lips, his hand falling instead to her hip.

She couldn’t even form the words to speak, a hushed moan drifting from her as she nipped gently at the paladin’s bottom lip before soothing the captured flesh with her tongue, causing the paladin to gasp aloud. “Noel—“ he groaned as her lips moved to his neck, kissing at his vulnerable skin.

The way his breath caught in his chest, the feel of his body pressed so close to hers, the sound of his voice—it was intoxicating. She was burning alive, she thought numbly to herself, her skin so hot she was certain she’d burst into flame at any moment. _Too much clothing,_ the thought was little more than a growl. _Get it off._

Noel guided the hand at her side to the hem of her shirt, and Danse slipped his fingers beneath the thin material. Even that little touch left her panting. “Danse… please—“ she whispered breathlessly.

“S-sorry,” he managed again, his voice husky, his hand stilling. “It's been a long time, and…”

God save her, was this muscular fantasy of a man _nervous_? A similar nervousness rippled through her, the searing heat between her thighs and her need for him tempered by her concern. She wanted to make sure he enjoyed this, that everything was perfect for him. Hell, it was already good for her just by his being there. “Danse, it’s okay. Me too.” She murmured, leaning in to kiss him again, more softly this time.

Slowly, bit by bit he relaxed. Noel couldn’t help but be reminded of when they fell asleep together at night, when he was always initially hesitant at the contact but slowly warmed up to it. She ran her hands along his shoulders and down his arms, then up again, going no further. How own hands, resting on her hips, squeezed gently, and she let out a wordless sigh of pleasure against his mouth.

Finally, hesitantly, he gripped at the hem of her shirt and eased it upward. Noel felt another flush of nervousness. While her wounds were healing well, the scars left behind were still hardly pretty by any stretch of the imagination. But Danse just eased her shirt up and over her head, tossing it away, his calloused fingertips drifting along her torso. “You’re—beautiful.” He whispered.

He would never have lied to her. The thought sent a bloom of warmth through her cheeks, and she felt her lips quirk upward into a shy smile as she eased upward just enough to unclasp her bra and shrug out of it. Tossing it aside to let it join her shirt on the floor, she cupped her hands over her breasts and fell back amidst the pillows.

“No, Noel,” Gently, he captured her wrists in his hands and eased them apart, baring her. “I… I want to see you.” He whispered so softly she barely heard him, and bowed his head to kiss her once more. His palms ran upward along her skin to her small, pert breasts, the feel of his calloused skin ghosting along her nipples making her writhe beneath him.

Noel wrapped her legs around him, drawing the paladin in as he squeezed at her breasts. He pressed hard against her heat through their pants, and she rolled her hips upward, making the man groan aloud, his eyes fluttering. “Feel good?” she teased with a hushed laugh, rocking her hips once again.

“Yes,” he gasped, pulling back in order to pull his own shirt off, carelessly dropping it to the floor. Her hands flew to his exposed skin, fingertips easing along the contours of his musculature and tracing delicately over the subtle dips and curves of his body. How long had she dreamed of this…?

“What is it?” he asked, his voice husky, his hand cupping at her cheek and drawing her out of her thoughts.

She met his gaze and wet her lips with the tip of her tongue to speak. “I just—I can hardly believe this is real,” she confessed with an apologetic smile. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up any minute.”

“Me too,” The two syllables sent heat burning through her, making the blood in her veins sing like liquid fire. Slowly, hesitantly, Danse’s fingers brushed down past her navel, to the front of her jeans. He fumbled with the button and zipper for a moment before loosening them, though he paused, glancing at her. “Can I…?”

“Please.” She whispered in reply, unable to keep the raw whine of need from her voice. Bucking her hips upward as he tugged her jeans off, she quickly sought out the hem of his own pants, fingers running along the denim, caressing at the hard heat just beneath. He rewarded her with a groan, burying his face against her neck to kiss at her skin. When his teeth grazed at her flesh in a soft nip, she arched upward off the bed and against him.

The paladin’s hand drifted along the inside of her thigh, slowly moving upward. When his fingers brushed against her through the thin material of her panties, she had to bite down on her lip to keep herself quiet, her hips desperately moving of their own accord to grind against his touch. She wanted more, needed more, needed _him._ As his fingers slowly eased into her panties to caress at her heat, Noel abandoned her attempt at staying quiet, gasping his name. Even in that moment, though, she was gratified to see the effect it had on him, his breath catching in his chest, dark eyes practically burning with heat.

She tugged his pants down and his boxer briefs just as quickly, seeking out his manhood with both hands, curling her fingers around him. His stiffness was hot against her hands, and as she swirled her thumb in gentle circles around the tip, he sighed in pleasure, a thick finger slipping between her folds and inside her. “You’re so wet,” his voice was ragged in her ear, his breath raising gooseflesh on her skin.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice almost lost, “Danse, please…” She couldn’t bear waiting any longer.

Fortunately, he seemed to feel the same way, for he slid his finger out of her and tugged her panties down, taking the moment to free his legs from his jeans, which she hadn’t been able to get past his knees. Finally, he eased between her legs, gripping at the base of his thick shaft with one hand while caressing at her hip with the other. Slowly, he teased at her center, leaving her to claw at the sheets in frustration as she wrapped her legs around him.

“Ah—fuck… Danse, please—fuck me!” she gasped desperately.

Her clearly-willing words seemed to spur him forward, and he finally thrust into her with a groan of pleasure. Noel could have sworn she saw stars for a moment, her eyes lidding at the sweet ecstasy of him filling her. She swore, as wound-up as she was she could have lost herself right then and there, but she made herself draw in a deep breath, then another, as she began rolling her hips in slow waves against him. Danse shivered and gave a few erratic thrusts before finding his rhythm with her.

The fire in her seemed to roar triumphantly, the primal need she’d had for so long finally being met. This was _passion_ , so raw and so powerful it left her giddy and breathless. Danse captured both her hands with his own, pinning them down against the mattress as their fingers laced together. He leaned forward, muscular chest pressing firmly down against her own, and kissed her deeply, his tongue slipping into her mouth to dance with hers.

She felt her toes curl as he thrust in and out of her and let a gasp as she felt him begin to throb within her. He wouldn’t last long, she realized, and guided his hand downward toward her center. She wanted to go over the edge with him. “Touch me, please…” Noel whispered, eyes fluttering open so she could watch him through a haze of yearning.

His fingers found her clit and circled at the sensitive bud. “Here?” he prompted, gasping. Sweat beaded along his brow and he swallowed hard, as if trying to rein himself in.

“Yes! Yes, _there,_ there—I’m so close!” she cried, throwing her arm around him and drawing him in for another kiss. A shiver worked its way up her spine, leaving her trembling like a leaf in a windstorm, and she came undone in his arms, her hips bucking roughly against his. She felt him thrust forward once more with a gasp, and he quickly wrapped both arms about her, lifting her off the bed and clutching her to himself as he throbbed, filling her with his hot seed. Noel clung to him, unable to move or even think, her mind utterly, blissfully blank as she panted against his neck for breath.

She didn’t know how long they remained that way before finally, slowly, he slid out of her, but he held her all the same, dotting her collarbone with warm kisses.

Finally, she managed to find her voice. “So—worth… the risk?” she asked, breathless and smiling.

His answer was to kiss her again, rolling onto his side and taking her down with him so they could tangle together in a mess of limbs. Then, in a manner that was almost possessive, he gently guided her head to rest over his heart so she could listen to his heartbeat as it slowed. His free hand fumbled for the blankets that were strewn across the foot of the bed before finally covering them.

“...Danse?” she whispered, glancing up at him.

He wore a drowsy look, perhaps the most content that she’d ever seen him. “Mm?”

_I love you._ “Nevermind.”

His fingers gently ran through her hair. “Good night, Noel.”

“Good night, Danse.”


End file.
